Devil's Angels
by Kittenshift17
Summary: Hermione applies to foster the children of Thorfinn Rowle, Antonin Dolohov, and Fenrir Greyback while the convicted Death Eaters are in prison. The Ministry is more than willing to let her take up the role no one else wants, there's just one catch. She's got to gain 'permission' from their father's to raise the boys. And she will. By whatever means necessary.
1. Chapter 1

**AUTHOR NOTES:**

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 **1)** This story main contain themes such as polyandry, lemons, violence, foster-care, dub-con elements, and single-parenting.

 **2)** All reference to the backstory of Thorfinn Rowle being at Hogwarts in overlapping years while Hermione was there, and any reference to the library scene are the brain-child of Canimal. I use them with her full knowledge and permission.

 **3)** If you like Death Eater centric fiction such as this, join our FB group: The Death Eater Express.

 **4)** I have no children myself and rarely associate with them, so if you note anything out of character for any child in this fic that isn't feasible given their personal circumstanes, please PM me so I may better understand and represent what children are like.

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 **Disclaimer:** I do not own _Harry Potter._ I make no profit off this fan-fiction.

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 **Devils' Angels**

 _By Kittenshift17_

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 **Chapter One**

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"You can't be serious?" Harry Potter's voice held shock and no small amount of condemnation. Hermione Granger pursed her lips, looking at the floor for a long moment in silence.

"This is madness," Ronald Weasley declared, his tone weighing more anger than shock.

"Surely you're joking, Hermione," Harry went on. "You can't… I mean, do you understand what you're proposing? What you're suggesting?"

"You don't know the first thing about children," Ron spat. "Especially not magical children."

Hermione pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at the floor for that little dig at her heritage. He'd been making nasty little comments like that since their romantic relationship had fizzled before it even had a chance to really begin. Not that Hermione lamented its loss. Without the war hanging over their heads, she and Ronald Weasley had little in common, and less to discuss.

"Are you finished?" Hermione asked the pair of them when they stood, finally silent.

"Why would you want to do this, Hermione?" Harry asked her, frowning when she looked up to meet his emerald gaze.

"You know why," Hermione told him sternly.

"You aren't responsible for shouldering every injustice of the wizarding world, Hermione," Ron growled. "First it was house-elves. Then it was werewolves, even after Remus died. Centaurs, Giants, Faeries, and bloody Squibs. But this is going too far! They're the children of _Death Eaters_ , Hermione. Do you get that? You'd be taking in children – magical children – whose parents are convicted Death Eaters. The likes of Antonin Dolohov - the bloke who almost murdered you. Fenrir bloody Greyback - a known rapist, cannibal and all-around sociopath. These kids are the ill-gotten devil-spawn of the foulest people on the planet!"

Hermione stamped her foot, her eyes suddenly blazing.

"Why don't you understand that every word of your argument is exactly why I _want_ to help these children, Ronald?" Hermine demanded. "Listen to what you're saying! We fought a war over the idea discrimination based on one's bloodlines and who their parents are, and yet you stand there, condemning innocent children for the unfortunate fact that bad people were their sperm donors."

Ron recoiled slightly at the venom in her tone, her mention of sperm, and likely, the fact that he knew on some level that she was right.

"They're just kids, Ron. Little children who need someone to look after them because their parents are dead, or are rotting in cells in Azkaban for their crimes during the war. They can't help who their fathers happen to be. They can't help being the offspring of bad men who forced themselves on women that refuse to raise their rape-babies. And yes, I know all too well exactly what they're being called, and I think it's despicable! We went to war because the likes of some of these men wanted to say people like me didn't deserve to live because of who _my_ parents are. And now you want to say the same about kids who had the misfortune of having a Death Eater for a father."

"Well, it's the truth," Ron said bitterly. "Do you really think people won't hold their fathers' crimes against them?"

"I know they will. That's why no one wants to adopt them or foster them, Ron. No one wants to put their hand up to raise the children of wicked men. But _someone_ has to. And that someone will be me."

"Hermione, you're barely an adult yourself. What business have you got raising kids?" Harry demanded, frowning in frustration.

"I'm old enough to be granted custody, Harry, and it looks like I'm the only one willing to stick her hand up and raise them. The only one not wanting to do so to get back at their fathers or to use them for their own nefarious purposes, anyway," Hermione replied. "Nothing either of you say is going to talk me out of this. I'd appreciate your support, but if you can't give it to me, I'll do this on my own."

"Fine!" Ron snarled. "When you realise that you're fucking up your entire life up for the sake of blokes who want you dead, you know where to find me."

With that, Ron Disapparated and Hermione scowled in fury. She turned her gaze on Harry, awaiting his decision.

"I…" Harry sighed heavily for a moment, looking down at his feet. "I can't say I agree with your decision, Hermione. Ron's right. I know you're trying to do a decent and noble thing, but I agree that you're trying to help men who'd sooner spit on you than thank you."

Hermione frowned sadly at his words, knowing they were probably true.

"That being said," Harry said softly. "I can't abandon you, Hermione. I won't. If this is the decision you want to make, I'll support you. If you really want to raise the unfortunate souls unlucky enough to call a Death Eater 'Dad', well, I guess I'll help you."

"You don't have to… you know, move in with me or anything, Harry," Hermione told him, smiling. "I'm not asking you to shoulder this responsibility with me. But I'd appreciate being able to come to you when they drive me mad enough to pull my hair out. They're just kids. I don't even know if the Ministry will grant me custody, to be honest."

"You'll need to be able to show that you can support them, Hermione," Harry told her. "You'll be given allowances, I imagine, both from the Ministry and from the bank vaults of those Death Eaters whose children you raise. But you'll have to show that you can provide them a stable home environment."

"I know," Hermione nodded. "That's fine. I can do that. I've got plenty of savings and my house is big enough."

"You live in a tiny cottage. It's barely big enough for you," Harry protested, laughing a bit.

"I expanded it," Hermione shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know how many of these kids need a home, but I have enough space for at least three, more if need be. I've got a nice private cottage far away from the prying eyes of the public where these kids won't be hounded because their parents did terrible things to the wizarding world."

Harry nodded slowly.

"I don't know if they'll let you do it alone, love," Harry frowned. "You're single. They might argue that a lack of a father figure isn't healthy."

"Right now, they don't seem to have many other options, Harry," Hermione sighed. "Honestly, the last time I asked about it at the Ministry, there had only been one applicant and it was by a man who is known for trafficking magical creatures, illegal goods, and probably people, too. Merlin knows what he'd do to a child. Especially a child no one else gives a damn about."

Harry nodded.

"Well, if you need to… you know… claim that you can give them a stable home with a Mum and a Dad… I'm available."

"Are you offering to date me, Harry Potter?" Hermione asked, her eyes widening even as she fought a grin.

Harry blushed before giving her a little shove.

"Don't do that," he protested. "You know I didn't mean… Bloody hell!"

Hermione began to laugh. There had been a moment during the Horcrux hunt – an all-time low for both of them following their defeat in Godric's Hollow – when they'd turned to one another for comfort and just to feel something good, just for a little while. Hermione wouldn't say she regretted sleeping with Harry, but it certainly made things awkward every now and then. They'd both been in love with other people, hurting, and simply the one person there for the other at the time.

"Honestly, you shag a bloke one time," Hermione teased, wrapping her arms around Harry's midsection and listening to him laugh with her when he hugged her in return.

"Yeah, well," Harry muttered. "I just… you know I'm always here for you, Hermione. Whatever you need. Even if what you need is for me to play Daddy to Death Eater spawn, or to pretend to be your boyfriend."

"Ginny would have a fit if she could hear you now," Hermione told him.

"Ginny's got issues that I can't help her with," Harry replied softly.

Hermione leaned into her best friend a little more, breathing in the familiar treacle and broom-polish scent of him. Harry and Ginny's relationship had fizzled much the way Hermione's had with Ron. Everyone was simply too broken after the war. Hermione buried her issues with life in the causes of others, championing every mistreated, downtrodden and abused race of creature, being or beast.

Harry worked out his problems with life on his broomstick, having turned down formal Auror training once all the Death Eaters had been rounded up and instead accepting an offer to play for Puddlemere United with Oliver Wood. Ginny had been forced by her mother to return to Hogwarts, where she pouted and dated too many boys who weren't Harry before joining the Harpies.

Ron worked out his frustrations with life in Auror training, despite not having Harry alongside him. Hermione suspected it wasn't going as well as he'd hoped.

"Have you thought about dating someone new?" Hermione asked him, leaning against him and simply enjoying the feel of being held.

"You know anyone who doesn't want to date me for defeating Tom? Or because I'm a professional Quidditch player? Or because I'm the bloody Chosen One?" Harry grumbled. "Pretty sure Ginny was my only hope, and that worked out about as well as trying to teach a dragon to do the Mamba."

Hermione snickered.

"Besides," Harry went on. "You can't talk. When was the last time you went on a date, Miss Granger?"

"Urgh, don't call me that. I feel like I'm back at school," Hermione grumbled. "And we're not going to discuss my love life."

"Because you don't have one," Harry needled.

"Hush up. I don't need a man clogging up my bed-space and leaving his beard-hair on my bathroom sink. Besides, who's going to take me when I'm about to foster the children of several known criminals?"

"Maybe we _should_ date," Harry muttered into her hair.

"Because the sex was so great the first time?" Hermione deadpanned.

"Hey!" Harry protested. "I didn't hear you complaining at the time, Hermione."

Hermione blushed. No, she hadn't complained at the time.

"I had more pressing things on my mind," Hermione argued.

"Are you saying I was rubbish? Because I might've been basing my prowess as a man on rocking your world, woman," Harry told her.

Hermione began to laugh.

"Yeah, right," she rolled her eyes, pulling back from him and crossing the kitchen of Grimmauld Place to make them both a cup of tea.

"I don't have any teabags left," Harry warned.

"Oh, for goodness sake!" Hermione exclaimed. "How do you actually function without me picking up after you, Potter?"

"Poorly," Harry admitted.

"Come on, we're going to my place," she told him, reaching for his hand. "Doesn't have _teabags_ … what sort of barbarian actually lets himself run out of teabags?"

They Disapparated with a crack, Hermione holding Harry's hand until they landed inside her cottage in the highlands of Scotland. It bordered onto a forest on one side, and wasn't far from a small loch on another. She'd have to ward it better to ensure the children she fostered wouldn't wander off when she wasn't looking.

Harry was chuckling at the way she muttered to herself as she put the jug on and began fixing up the teapot to brew a nice strong cup of tea.

"I always forget how nice it is here," Harry murmured, peering out the window and out across her overgrown backyard and to the loch beyond it.

"You don't visit me often enough," Hermione admonished, moving over to stand beside him while they waited for the tea to steep.

"You never answered my question, love," Harry murmured, taking her hand and sliding his fingers through hers absently as he looked out the window.

"Which one?" Hermione frowned.

"Was it rubbish?" he asked. "I mean, I didn't think so at the time, but we were both pretty low. Honestly, in my head I remember it being bloody amazing because it blocked out everything else for a little while."

Hermione laid her head on his shoulder, frowning slightly as she thought about it.

"I didn't have a lot of experience to compare it to," she admitted. "Up until that point I'd only shagged Viktor, which admittedly, hurt the first few times. After that it was…well, I suppose it was good with him. And you're right. I remember our encounter the same way, but how much of that was sexual compatibility or skill as opposed to emotional release and a distraction from how much we were both hurting, is unclear."

Harry dropped a kiss to the top of her head fondly for her honesty.

"Can I tell you a secret?" he asked softly.

"Always," Hermione smiled.

"Ginny was rubbish," Harry told her. "She just… I feel like a bastard for saying so, but honestly she just laid there and wanted to stare at me. It creeped me out so bad that I… um… faked finishing with her just so we could stop."

Hermione's eyes widened before she lifted her head to look at him.

"Oh my, gosh! Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, unsure if she should blush or laugh.

"Don't tell her I told you, please? Blimey, don't tell her I said a bloody word, or that I faked it. She'd kill me."

Hermione began to laugh as she poured them both a cup of tea.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asked in return.

"If you say Ron was rubbish too, I might actually begin to worry for the future of the Weasley bloodline," Harry warned her.

Hermione snickered.

"He wasn't rubbish," Hermione rolled her eyes, levitating their cups out into the backyard and over to the pair of banana chairs she'd bought to lounge in the rare patches of sunlight this far North. "He just… tried too hard. You know? I mean, he'd obviously had a lot of practice with Lavender before crawling into bed with me, but he… honestly, it made me a bit uncomfortable the way he was always wanting to shift me to some new position if I didn't start moaning within the first three strokes."

"At least he moved," Harry replied.

"Gods, we're so awful, laughing at our two closest friends this way," Hermione said, unable to help her giggle.

"No, we're not," Harry shook his head. "We're allowed to say bad things about them because we dated them. If we were bad mouthing them as just our friends, that'd be another matter. But we're not. We dated them, trash talk is allowed."

Hermione sighed contentedly as she sipped her tea. Harry dropped into one of the banana chairs and Hermione squeaked when he reached for her hand, pulling her down to squeeze onto it next to him, rather than having her sit in the second chair. She liked the easy comfort she always felt with Harry. She never felt like she had to go out of her way to make conversation and she rarely ever felt awkward with him.

"I've missed this," she told him softly, laying her cheek on his chest and cuddling into his side.

"Snuggling me?" he asked.

"That too, but I meant that I've missed having you all to myself. I like that I can just sit with you and cuddle you or share a joke with you and call you a git for running out of teabags and you always let me," Hermione whispered.

Harry pressed another kiss to the top of her head.

"I've missed it, too. When we were on the run together, just the two of us, I was always worrying about finding the next Horcrux, and who might be dying the longer we took, and if Ron would ever pull his head out his arse. And the whole time you were right there with me, bearing the brunt of my bad moods, looking after me, making sure I ate when I'd have forgotten otherwise. But for a few minutes at the end of the day when you'd crawl into bed next to me, I used to pretend we were back at Hogwarts on the couches by the fire, with you reading up on our latest assignment while I thought about Quidditch drills I'd run for the next Gryffindor team practice."

Hermione smiled.

"Harry, do you think I'm making a terrible mistake, wanting to help these kids?" she asked softly, her voice little more than a whisper.

"I… honestly, love? I think you're doing something that most of us are too prejudice and too raw over the war to even consider. I don't think I could do it. I'd never even have considered it if you weren't thinking of it," Harry murmured in return. "But you're right. It's hardly the fault of the children that their parents made terrible mistakes and did terrible things."

Hermione sighed, closing her eyes a burrowing into him a little more, feeling more at peace in that moment than she'd done since before the war.

"I do have one question though," Harry admitted a short while later as they each sipped their tea and simply held one another.

"Mmmm?" Hermione asked.

"What are you going to do about their parents?" Harry asked. "I mean, depending on how many of these kids there are, and who their parents are, there's a good chance a few of them have living parents in Azkaban. Some of them might even be up for parole, sometime in the future. How are you going to handle raising the sons and daughters of people like Dolohov or Greyback or Lestrange?"

"I don't know, Harry," Hermione sighed. "I… I hardly think any of them would appreciate knowing that I'm raising their children. But I also don't like the idea of letting them rot out their remainder of their lives in prison while some poor child grows up fatherless. I think… I think I'd probably go and confront them about it. Rub it in a little that a muggleborn is raising their child or children. Make them feel guilty enough that if they're ever paroled, they might be interested in ensuring the children they sired grow up well."

"You'd willingly interact with them again?" Harry asked, surprised. "You're braver than me, Hermione. I don't even want to see any of those idiots again."

"I don't _want_ to see them again," Hermione replied. "But I have a feeling the Ministry might ask it as a term of the foster-care contract. Most don't, of course, but you never know, with our Ministry."

"Still. Are you really sure you want to have to face them again. Imagine having to stand in front of Dolohov and talk to him about his kid. He almost killed you. He murdered Remus! Or worse, Greyback. That twisted bastard would likely try to take a bite out of you again if you went anywhere near him."

"I don't think they'd actually let me in the same room or be close enough to touch, Harry. I might have to speak with them, but I doubt I'd have to worry about being attacked," Hermione assured him.

"Well, I'm here to help with whatever you need, love. Just… promise me that you're not doing this out of some form of survivor's guilt or as a way to hide from your problems."

"Of course I'm doing it to hide from my problems, Harry. I robbed my own parents of the knowledge that I'm their daughter and nothing I tried, fixed it. I feel terrible over it, all the time, and the idea that there are kids out there without parents – feeling this sense of disconnection that I feel, knowing they have parents _somewhere_ , just not here – makes me ache inside. I can't have my own parents back, I know that, but I can _be_ a parent to these kids who need someone."

"If you want to do it just to be a mother, surely it would make more sense to give birth to your own biological child?" Harry suggested.

"And who would sire such a child, Harry? You?" Hermione asked. "I'm not about to ask one of the Weasleys, and Viktor is happily married. The only other person I'd ever have entertained thoughts of motherhood with is dead."

Harry frowned at her. "Who?" he asked.

Hermione blushed, burrowing her face into his chest a little more before mumbling the answer.

"I didn't catch that," Harry said when she purposely made the name unintelligible.

Hermione sighed. "Remus, Harry. Don't laugh at me. Yes, for a bit, before he and Tonks got together, I had a thing for Remus."

Harry seemed surprised. He pulled back to stare into her face for a long moment. "But he was so much older than us," he said. "He went to school with my Dad. He was twenty years older than you, Hermione."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Age is just a number, Harry. Remus and I clicked well. Both bookish. Both led into trouble by meddlesome Potters. We had a lot in common and I loved having intellectual debates with him. I never cared that he was twice my age. And it doesn't matter anyway because he married a wonderful witch and they both sacrificed their lives for our freedom. The point I was making is that unless you're offering your sperm-donor services, I don't exactly have prospects for motherhood biologically."

"I… If you want a kid, Hermione…." Harry began and Hermione jerked up, blinking at him.

"What? Seriously?" she asked, raising her eyebrows at him. "You'd throw away your friendship with Ron and Ginny, and any future you might find with some pretty witch on the French International team, just because I have a ticking biological clock? Really?"

Harry stared back at her just as seriously.

"I'd do _anything_ for you, Hermione," he said quietly. "If that was what you wanted, I'd do it."

Hermione's mind reeled in shock at his proclamation. She'd known he cared about her and that he'd help her with anything she asked about, but she hadn't expected this.

"I…" Hermione frowned.

"Of course that hinges on the idea that the first time we shagged was skill and compatibility based, rather than an emotional outlet" Harry said when she trailed off. "It might be a bit awkward trying to make a baby if the sex is rubbish."

Hermione could help the squeak of laughter that escaped her.

"I love you, you idiot," she told him affectionately. "And I'm not letting you throw away your future that way. Besides, there are children already in existence who need parents. It would be selfish to make new children when there are some who already need me. But if we both hit thirty and are unattached, or childless, I _will_ take you up on that offer."

Harry grinned and held out his hand for her to shake. "Deal."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

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"Miss Granger, are you quite certain you understand what you're doing?" the Ministry witch – whose name tag read: Carrie Shafiq – asked her sternly.

"I'm applying to become a foster parent to the magical children of several known and convicted criminals with the intention of raising them to adulthood or until such time that their biological family claim them," Hermione replied primly.

"That's not what I meant," Carrie shook her head softly, making her bright blonde ringlet sway. "Have you read the fostering contract for these children, Miss Granger? Do you know how many of them there are? How many are you willing to take on?"

Hermione frowned.

"How many are there?" she asked. "And what ages are they?"

"There are four, currently in need of homes and care," Carrie told her. "All boys. The eldest, Lucian, is seven. The youngest, his half-brother - whose yet to be given a first name - is fifteen months old. There is also another boy, Dmitri, who will be three next month and the fourth, Alrik, has just turned two."

"Erm… Who do they belong to?"

"No one," Carrie shrugged. "If they belonged to someone, they wouldn't be in the custody of the Ministry."

"I meant, who are their biological parents," Hermione sighed, annoyed with the woman for being purposely dense.

"I'll get you their files," Carrie said after pursing her lips for a moment.

Hermione nodded and waited to be given four files for the four small boys who needed care.

"These are for the two who are related, Lucian and his little brother," Carrie said, handing it over. "This one is for Alrik, and this one is for Dmitri."

Hermione accepted them carefully, feeling dread pool in her stomach as she saw the surnames stamped across the front.

"Greyback, Lucian," Hermione read. "And Greyback, No First Name. How does a baby reach fifteen months of age without being given a first name?"

Carrie shrugged her shoulders. "He was delivered at St. Mungo's shortly after Fenrir Greyback was arrested. His mother said nothing more to the midwives than that he was the rape-baby of Fenrir Greyback and that she wanted nothing to do with him."

Hermione flipped over the file.

"Who was his mother?" she frowned, scanning for the name. She found it stamped across the child's Birth Certificate. "Isobella Greentree. I've never heard of her."

"And she'd like it to stay that way," Carrie said crisply. "You must understand, Miss Granger, these boys are here because nobody wants them. They either have no biological family who will take them, or their mothers are dead and their fathers are in prison."

Hermione frowned.

"Lucian Greyback, seven years old. Son of Fenrir Greyback and Charlotte Howard. I've never heard of her either. Lucian was conceived willingly?"

"I believe so. Lucian was brought into custody of the Ministry when Fenrir was arrested. I believe his mother was killed sometime before that time. He's very skittish and… for want of a better word, feral. He spent too long with Greyback, it seems. He snarls and snaps. His eyes flash different colours, and he eats like a savage."

"Is he afflicted with lycanthropy?" Hermione asked.

"Would that effect your willingness to take him?" Carrie asked carefully.

"No," Hermione admitted.

"I don't believe he's a werewolf in the traditional sense. He, erm… well, he doesn't fully transform at the full moon and he doesn't lose his mind, from what we've observed. He just… well, he transforms half way. He… he's an abomination, Miss Granger. He grows a long fluffy wolf-tail and his face elongates to a wolf's snout and his ears move up to the top of his head and grow furry, like a dog's. He grows claws and fangs, but he never attacks. He just squats in the corner of the room and growls if anyone gets too close. Thus far, we feed him steak – raw – on such occasions and he's happy to be left alone. He barely speaks."

Hermione frowned. She'd heard of the condition. It meant both of his parents had been werewolves, and that he'd been conceived of a mate-bond between Fenrir and Charlotte. When they'd been mated, Fenrir would have been unable to produce offspring with others until Charlotte died, which she'd obviously done shortly before the younger Greyback boy had been conceived.

"And the other boy? The baby?" Hermione asked.

"Normal, from what we can tell. He doesn't shift, or if he does, we've yet to see it happen. His eyes flash every now and then, but that's the extent of his weirdness. He hasn't been given a name because, honestly, no one seems willing to name him without claiming him."

"I'll name him," Hermione sighed. "The other boys? Dmitri and Alrik?"

"Alrik Rowle," Carrie said, frowning at Hermione like she must be barmy before pointing to the files. "Alrik is the biological son of Thorfinn Rowle and Becky Selwyn. Becky was killed in a flying accident a few months ago and her relatives are either in Azkaban along with Thorfinn, or incapable of caring for the boy."

"There's no one who could raise him?" Hermione frowned.

Carrie simply shook her head.

"And Dmitri?" she asked, not even needing to, really. "Son of Antonin Dolohov and Tatiana Rasmussen. Deceased mother. No living relatives. Of course."

"You don't seem quite so enthusiastic," Carrie said and Hermione would swear she could hear the sneer in the woman's tone.

No, she wasn't quite as enthusiastic. The three men who'd fathered these boys had personally wronged her since her debut into the wizarding world. Rowle had tried to kill her and made her first year at Hogwarts utter hell. Dolohov had hexed her and almost killed her at the Ministry in the Department of Mysteries. And Greyback had threatened to rape her, dragged her to Malfoy Manor to be tortured, and been disgustingly rude and lewd, feeling her up, licking her face and grinding his erection against her whilst holding her prisoner.

Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that the children were not their fathers.

"On the contrary, Carrie, I'm still very much on board to foster them," Hermione said. "What papers do I need to sign?"

Carrie's lips twisted.

"I don't think you understand, Miss Granger, just what fostering a child in the wizarding world means. Rather, I don't think you understand the stipulations for fostering those who belong to men currently serving prison sentences in Azkaban."

"What's not to understand?" Hermione asked. "Must I speak with their fathers before I can foster the boys?"

"Erm… well, you see, because you're not a blood relative of the boys, you have to… Gods, this is barbaric and I wish there was some way around it. You see, Hermione, in order to adopt the boys – to foster them – you have to have 'permission' from a blood relative of the children, or you have to _be_ a blood relative. Now, ordinarily that's fine. A living relative will take them, or will sign over permission to whoever fosters the children and it's fine."

"But these three are as likely to grant me permission to their kids as they are to escape Azkaban," Hermione finished for her.

"Well… about that," Carrie bit her lip before looking over her shoulder. "There's a 'clause' that would get you around that requirement that still grants you permission."

Hermione frowned.

"I don't understand."

"Well, these boys need a mother. Magically speaking, there's a way to achieve that without needing written or even verbal permission from their fathers. But it can only be attained from their fathers."

"Oh?" Hermione asked.

Carrie leaned in very close, whispering now, as though fearful of being overheard. "Fidelity Magic recognises a witch as being given 'permission' to a man's children, his money, and everything he possesses, through sexual contact. It's along the lines that if you were to have sexual contact with these three men, you'd have rights to their children and their money. It's a very ancient law that not many people know about. Originally it was written into the magical fabric of the world as a means to keep wayward husbands from straying or shagging the servants and what have you. Any form of sexual contact triggers it."

"Meaning I have to… shag Rowle, Dolohov, and Greyback to be allowed to foster their children?" Hermione asked.

"No, you wouldn't have to shag them. Even a snog would do it. It was designed to ensure men knew what they'd lose if they touched any woman not their wife, and to protect victims of rape by allowing that witch access to the man's money to raise any ill-gotten children. Almost no-one remembers it, but you could invoke it to gain custody of the boys."

"And all I have to do is snog them?" Hermione asked. "Does past sexual contact count? Because during the war Greyback kissed me and licked my face."

"No, it's not a long-acting magical allowance in the instance of children not biologically yours. Any form of sexual contact that results in _you_ falling pregnant would grant it for life, but since the boys aren't biologically yours, you'd have to renew the magic every month or so," Carrie whispered. "You'd have to snog them, which is unfortunate, but it would grant you access to their properties, their bank vaults, and their children."

Hermione blinked at the woman in shock.

"I'd have to snog the three of them every month to keep custody?" Hermione asked.

"Well, you could let it slide after a while, I imagine. When the Ministry stopped checking into the bond and the allowances, you'd be able to stop, but until then, yes," Carrie confirmed.

"You're sure of this?"

"It's how I got my daughter," Carrie muttered to her. "I adopted Corban Yaxley's daughter last year. He's still in prison, and Katie needed a home and a mother. He refused to give me written or verbal permission, so I snogged him and the Ministry granted me custody of her."

"You can steal a man's children by snogging him?" Hermione asked. "That's… barbaric."

"Only if they've been disowned or orphaned by the rest of their relatives," Carrie told her. "But yes. And it is barbaric, but it means that innocent kids get a good home, and it's not so much of a sacrifice."

"Speak for yourself," Hermione replied. "I've seen Yaxley, he's good-looking and his worst crime was… what? Torturing people?"

"I believe so. That's what he was convicted for, anyway," Carrie told her.

"I, on the other hand, would have to snog Rowle, Dolohov and Greyback."

"Rowle's dreamy, so I don't know what you're complaining about. And Dolohov's a bit older than you, I'll grant, but he's holding up well for a man who spent half his life in prison."

"And Greyback?" Hermione asked.

"You haven't seen him untransformed, have you?" Carrie asked her softly, smiling suddenly.

"I… Actually no, I can't say I have. He was always partially transformed whenever I encountered him."

"The Ministry have him in a cell that means he can't access his wolf outside the night of the full moon," she told her. "And they dose him every day with Wolfsbane to keep him human while he's in prison so he can't savage the guards since they did away with the Dementors. He's erm… well, I don't know if you know, but werewolves don't age the way we do. No one's completely sure of when his birthday is, but he doesn't look a day over thirty-five though certain records indicate his existence as early as sixty or so years ago. Killer eyes, brown hair to his shoulders. Very built. Honestly, if he wasn't a monster, I'd go there." Hermione's eyes widened in surprise but Carrie wasn't finished. "And it's only a snog. They've been in prison long enough, and they're all lecherous enough that you'd only have to provoke them a little and they'll snog you. You just have to endure a few moments of 'ick' every month and then you're free to keep raising the boys."

"This is what you do?" Hermione asked her.

Carrie nodded. "It works, I swear. If you sign the papers, travel to Azkaban, snog them and return, you'll be granted full custody and given keys to their bank vaults for all the money you'd need to raise those boys. I don't know how much any of them have left, but if you're snogging them, you get the same rights as if you were married to them. An all-access pass, of sorts."

"This is… madness," Hermione whispered.

"Do you want to raise the boys, or not, Granger?" Carrie demanded. "I'll be honest, it would be good to see them have a mother and a home. They're treated like dirt here. No one wanted any of them because their fathers are all wretches. The girls all got adopted, but those four have been here for months. Lucian's been here almost two years. He's isolated and withdrawn. He _needs_ a mother."

Hermione bit her lip. Could she do it?

"All I have to do is snog them?" she confirmed.

Carrie nodded. "I swear on my magic," she said. "I'll even help you fill out the papers."

"You don't need to inspect my home to ensure it's suitable?" Hermione asked.

Carrie shook her head. "I'm supposed to, but you're Hermione Granger. I don't _need_ to. And besides, you'd have access to Rowle Tower and wherever Dolohov lives. I don't imagine you'd want whichever squalid dwelling Greyback calls home, but the Tower is very nice. I used to go there as a girl."

"I'd live in my own cottage," Hermione protested. "It's very safe. But I'm unattached. Don't you need to prove they'd have a stable home environment?"

"You're not hearing me, Hermione," Carrie huffed. "Those boys have no one. The Ministry elves feed them and do their laundry and change their diapers. A Healer checks on them once a month. That's the extent of their interaction with anyone but each other."

Hermione's hand covered her mouth.

"Can I meet them?" she asked in a whisper.

Carrie nodded, getting to her feet and leading Hermione away down the hall. Hermione followed her, ignoring the looks from suspicious Ministry workers lurking about for a story or a scoop of gossip. Carrie led her to the very end of a corridor and used her wand to perform a series of charms to unlock the room.

Hermione's heart broke when she entered the room.

There were three small beds and a baby cot. All four boys were sitting inside, playing together, but it was clear they were unloved and unwanted. Their hair was too long, their skin grimy as though they didn't wash often enough because nobody made sure they did so. They looked a little underfed and the things in the room were shabby. Most of the toys they played with were broken and their clothes had rips and holes in them, obviously donated or pulled from lost property somewhere.

"Boys," Carrie greeted them softly. "This is Hermione Granger. She's going to adopt you."

The unnamed Greyback baby and Alrik Rowle were both likely too young to understand what she'd said. Dmitri looked puzzled, and Lucian watched the pair of witches with wary grey eyes, pulling his baby brother and the other two boys back toward himself, as though fearful they'd be taken away from him. Hermione recognised the urge to protect his 'pack' in the young boy.

"Lucian?" she asked softly. "Would it be alright if I came over there and sat down?"

The seven year old eyed her carefully, his eyes darting to Carrie. He bared his teeth at the other witch.

"He doesn't like me because I took Katie away," Carrie said quietly. "I'll leave you with them for a few minutes. When you need me, I'll be at my desk."

Carrie let herself out of the room and Lucian stopped baring his teeth. He eyed Hermione warily for a moment, watching the way she came closer slowly. She approached cautiously, not wanting to startle them.

"Who you?" Dmitri asked, surprising Hermione with his ability to talk at all.

"My name is Hermione," she told them softly. "What's your name?"

"Dmitri Dolohov," the little boy of three informed her, holding out his hand smartly to introduce himself. Hermione blinked in surprise before shaking his hand.

"Awik!" Alrik introduced himself, pointing to his own chest indicatively.

"Alrik," she corrected the boy's pronunciation. "And you must be Lucian."

She turned her eyes on the eldest boy. He clutched his baby brother in his lap and he jerked his head in a nod of affirmation at her words.

"What do you call your brother, Lucian?" she asked softly, settling herself to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the boys.

Lucian glanced at the baby.

"Pup," he shrugged.

Hermione frowned.

"He needs a proper name, don't you think?" she asked. "Maybe one that means wolf? Like you and your father?"

Lucian nodded warily.

"How about, from now on, we call him Ranulf?" she asked. "Ranulf Gryback."

Lucian's eyes flashed for a moment before he nodded again.

"Excellent," Hermione hummed. Her heart squeezed in her chest when little Alrik – all bright blond hair and blue eyes - wobbled forward on toddler legs to fall into her lap.

"Hello, Alrik," Hermione smiled. "Merlin, it ought to be illegal for anyone to be as adorable as you four are. Especially given who your fathers are."

"You know my Daddy?" Dmitri asked.

Hermione nodded, lifting Alrik into her lap and letting the boy tug on her curls. "I do, Dmitri. I know all of your fathers. I went to Hogwarts with Alrik's Daddy, Thorfinn."

"How do you know my Daddy?" Dmitri asked.

"He… we made acquaintance here at the Ministry one day while I was in my fifth year. And Lucian, I met your father in the woods one day."

"Did he bite you?" Lucian asked, leaning forward slightly and sniffing the air.

"He licked me," Hermione offered, not wanting to speak ill of their fathers, despite what wretched people they happened to be. "And he said he very much _wanted_ to bite me. Among other things…"

Lucian's eyes flashed.

"You're lucky he didn't," he murmured. "Or you'd be a wolf, too."

"Like you?" she asked softly.

Lucian growled at her. "If you were bitten, you'd be a wolf like Mum. No one is like me. Not even the pup."

"Don't growl, Lucian," Dmitri whispered. "She might adopt us. Unless you growl."

Hermione smiled at the children carefully, seeing the veiled hope on Dmitri's face and watching the way Alrik pulled softly on her curls, intrigued by the long spirals. It occurred to her that being essentially neglected and uncared for while they'd been in Ministry custody, they'd obviously had to mature a little faster than most children would have done.

"You're taking them away from me?" Lucian asked sullenly, looking resentful and like he wanted to bite her. "I won't let you. They're _my_ pack and you can't take any more of them away!"

Hermione squeaked in surprise when the boy set aside his brother, lunged at her and bit her forearm viciously. He withdrew just as quickly, snatching Alrik back as he went, and leaving Hermione sitting there in shock.

"That wasn't very nice, Lucian," Hermione told the boy, suspecting that raising her voice or growing angry would only upset him further. "You've drawn blood."

She showed him the beads of blood forming on her skin where he'd left a perfect ring of his teeth marks. Lucian's response was to growl and Hermione wondered if maybe he'd already been alone too long. Carrie was right, he was more than a little feral, left to his own devices so long and forced to be the most mature in a group of toddlers. Perhaps his distrust of adults would never subside, no matter what she might be do try and alter his perceptions. But she had to try.

"I have no intention of taking any of your pack away from you, Lucian," she went on softly. "I came here today to ask if you'd all like to come home with me, where I can look after you."

Lucian's eyes glittered with remorse, clearly thinking his aggression had cost him the chance of getting out of here or having a family.

"Lucian!" Dmitri cried out in despair while Alrik began to cry. "Now the nice lady goes away... leave us here alone... again."

Hermione's heart squeezed when Lucian growled at the little boy as Dmitri hit him in his frustration.

"Dmitri, we don't hit family, alright?" Hermione asked, catching the dark-haired boy's arm and preventing him from doing so again. "Lucian was scared and he struck out when he shouldn't have, but that's not his fault, and he's not going to do it again, are you Lucian?"

Lucian looked wary before he shook his head slowly, though he also shrugged, making her think he'd do it again if he thought it was necessary.

"Good. Now, if you would all like to come home with me, I will go and gain the permission of your father's to foster you," Hermione told them.

Lucian's eyes lit up.

"You're going to see my Dad?" he asked in an awed voice.

"Yes. I have to have his permission to take you home with me," Hermione told the young boy softly.

"Will you tell him about Pup? Ranulf?" Lucian corrected himself, suddenly looking excited.

Hermione's heart broke when she realised the little boy loved his father and missed him terribly. She understood why they couldn't be allowed near their fathers, given that they were in Azkaban, but the idea that without them, these little children had no one else to love them or care for them made her whole body ache with sadness. To her, Fenrir Greyback was a terrible monster. A murderer. A cannibal. A rapist. A wretched creature too dangerous to be allowed to interact with the public. But to Lucian, he was the man he called "Daddy". He was the man who likely played with him and cared for him. Born of a mate-bond, Hermione didn't doubt that for all his flaws, Fenrir Greyback would've been kind to his mate and would've loved the child they'd created together.

"Of course I will, sweetheart," Hermione whispered, her throat tight as she choked back her tears. "Will you do something for me while I go and see him?"

"Can't I come too?" he asked, looking crestfallen.

"No, Lucian. Your fathers are all in prison. It's not a nice place for little boys to go. The guards won't let me in to see them if I take you with me," Hermione told him. "But I'll tell him you say hello, and that you love him, if you like?"

"My Daddy too?" Dmitri asked, toddling over and pulling at Hermione's unwounded hand to get her attention. "Will you see my Daddy too?"

Hermione nodded.

"Of course, Dmitri. I'll tell all of your fathers that you say hello," Hermione whispered. "Can you do something for me while I do it?"

"What is it?" Lucian asked.

"Pack up your toys and have baths?" Hermione asked. "We'll leave as soon as I get back from meeting with your Dad, alright? Can you help the little ones get clean?"

Lucian nodded.

"I'll be back shortly, I promise," Hermione whispered as she got to her feet, watching them get up, too.

"Wait…" Lucian called, setting Ranulf down on the floor for a minute and racing after her as she approached the door. "I… Sorry I bit you."

He looked at his feet for a minute, before reaching for her still bleeding arm. Hermione frowned slightly when he licked the bite clean of her blood, some anticoagulant in his saliva sealing the wound shut. She'd never seen a wound do that before, and she wondered just what type of effects came as a result of his being born of a lycanthropic mate-bond.

"I'd appreciate it if you curbed your urge to bite anyone from now on, Lucian," Hermione told him, reaching for him carefully and watching the way he watched her hand until she touched his hair gently. "I know it's hard, sometimes, and if you feel threatened or like you or your pack are in danger, you do whatever you can to defend yourself and them, but please don't bite me again, alright?"

Lucian nodded his head.

"Sorry," he whispered again. "Will… will you give my Dad something from me?"

Hermione nodded. "What is it, sweetheart?" she asked.

Hermione blinked when the boy threw himself at her, pressing his face into her shirt and cuddling her tightly enough to make her wince ever so slightly.

"Tell him I miss him," Lucian whispered. "And I'm sorry. And I've been looking after Pup. Ranulf. And that I want to see him again."

Hermione's eyes filled with tears as she hugged the boy in return.

"I'll tell him, darling," Hermione whispered, smoothing a gentle hand over his tangled brown hair. "You get yourself and the boys ready for when I come back, and I'll take you all far away from this terrible place."

Lucian nodded, wiping his suspiciously wet eyes as he pulled away and hurried back to his brother without looking back, obviously shy and uncomfortable after being affectionate. She suspected she might've provided the only human contact he'd had from an adult not a healer in however long he'd been in this wretched room.

Hermione let herself out, warding the door behind her to keep the boys from getting out and running loose in the Ministry. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she hurried back down the hall to where Carrie waited with all the papers she needed to sign before going to Azkaban.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

* * *

Hermione held her breath as they approached the towering structure of the prison on an island in the middle of the North Sea, far from any civilization. She pulled her cloak tighter around herself, shivering against the cold blasts of wind that buffeted her slim frame with enough force to almost knock her off her feet before she was led inside the prison.

"You sure are brave, wanting to visit these three, Granger," her Auror escort – a rough-seeming man named Clarence Stebbins – commented as he led her inside.

Carrie had sent word ahead to have Rowle, Dolohov, and Greyback prepped for visitation. Hermione suspected that meant they would be allowed - or forced - to bathe, shave, and brush their teeth. She really hoped they were able to brush their teeth, otherwise this was going to be even more unsettling that it already promised to be. She couldn't be more grateful to Carrie for at least insisting they be bathed. She recalled how filthy Sirius had been when he'd escaped Azkaban and she didn't fancy getting too close to any of these men at the best of times, let alone when they were unwashed. The idea of even seeing any of them was turning her stomach with fear and hatred, and Hermione dreaded having to snog any one of them individually, let alone all three.

"It's important that I do so," Hermione told Stebbins, trying to control the way her hands trembled with nerves at the idea of facing such wretched men once more.

"Who do you want first?"

"Which one is the worst?" she asked in reply.

Stebbins snorted as though she'd told a joke. "They're all scum in my opinion, doll. But Greyback's the worst of the lot, I'd say. Feral beast, that one. Dunno what you want to be seeing him for. Foul git, he is. Monster."

Hermione didn't comment on his degradation of his prisoners, unprofessional though it was. She had no interest in defending these men against those who judged and guarded them.

"I'll see Greyback first, then. Rowle last," she decided. She rationalised that of the three, Rowle was probably the most pleasant, since his attempt on her life had been little more than pushing her down a moving staircase in school.

"Right then, this way. Greyback's on the very top floor for the maddest criminals. We reckon that if any of them ever _do_ escape by trying to jump down and swim for shore, the fall will kill the bastards who jump from the top."

Hermione nodded her head.

"Are they… erm… prepared for visitation?" Hermione asked.

"They will be, yeah. Greyback will be in chains, hands and feet and one around his throat. He's sedated a bit with the Wolfsbane, too. So don't be alarmed if he's a bit dopey. Got to keep him that way, or he savages folks."

"Delightful," Hermione whispered, stuffing her hands into her pockets to hide the way they shook.

"Oi! Scum!" Stebbins greeted the werewolf when they reached the top of the prison, rapping a baton on the bars of Greyback's cell. He stood in the middle of the room, hands and feet chained, a collar around his throat just as Stebbins had promised. His brown hair was long, falling past his shoulders, but it looked somewhat clean. He had some terrible scars across his face and visible on his forearms where they were bare.

Hermione blinked. Carrie had been right. If he weren't a wretch, he'd be sexy as hell. Merlin, even knowing what a monster he was, she knew her body reacted to the sight he made. His hair was brown but for a streak of silver in the front. His eyes were a pale shade of grey, almost translucent, when they weren't the yellow of the wolf.

They were also fixed on her and a cruel, toothy smirk was curling across his face as Hermione was let into the room.

"Hello, girly," he greeted her, his voice pleasantly rough in a way that made her hair stand on end.

"Greyback," Hermione nodded in greeting, her shoulders tense with the nerves of being in his presence. Chained or not, he was dangerous. She could feel it.

She looked over at Stebbins when he didn't follow her inside.

"You can wait out there if you're uncomfortable, Stebbins," Hermione told the Auror, noting the way he leered at Greyback from the door but didn't enter the cell after Hermione.

"Watch him, you hear?" Stebbins told her. "He's dosed up, but he's been known to break those chains."

Hermione nodded, looking away from the Auror and back at the werewolf when his chains clanked as he shifted closer, stretching to the ends of them as he drew in her scent.

"Pleased to see me, girly?" he smirked, taunting her, apparently picking up on the hint of attraction she'd felt.

"Who wouldn't be?" Hermione sneered in return, finding her courage.

"You smell… like…" he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath before his eyes shot open, deepening to the gold of the wolf. "Why do you smell like my pup?"

His teeth appeared to sharpen in his mouth and Hermione tipped her head to one side slowly, subconsciously displaying submission to him as the Alpha in the room so as to avoid having him think she was there to challenge him. That wouldn't end well for her, Hermione knew. She watched him carefully as he sniffed the air again, shifting a little bit closer.

"Lucian asked me to tell you that he missed you, Fenrir," Hermione replied quietly. "He asked me to give you a hug, too. But I think I might just tell him I passed it along."

"What's the matter, witch? You scared of the big bad wolf?" he challenged. "Why the fuck have you been anywhere near my pup, mudblood?"

"He's my pup, now. Him and his brother."

Greyback's eyes went wide.

"She got pregnant?" he smirked. "How old is he? What's his name?"

"Ranulf," Hermione answered. "I named him this morning. He's fifteen months old."

She jumped when he tipped his head back and howled triumphantly.

"Does he shift like Lucian?" he asked, appearing excited as though the notion of his illegitimate children were cause for celebration.

"I'm told not."

"Said they were yours?" he raised one eyebrow at the idea, obviously confused. "You claiming my cubs, Granger?"

"You know who I am?"

"You put me in this place," he retorted, waving a finger around the cell and making his chains clank all the more. "When I get loose, I'll rip your throat out for it, too."

"You put yourself here, Fenrir. And I didn't even testify at your trail," Hermione argued, frowning at the causal way he threatened her – he didn't seem threatening as he said it. In fact, he stated his intent to rip her throat out with as much interest as he might state that the sun would come out when the rain cleared. "However, I am here because I have been granted custody of your sons. I will be raising them from here on out."

"Where's my bitch? The young one. Izzy something," he asked. Hermione didn't bother trying to correct him for calling the girl a bitch, thinking he meant it in the sense of referring to a female canine by the proper title 'bitch' rather than that he was insulting the poor woman. Hermione frowned. Maybe he didn't know the woman was human and not a werewolf.

"She gave Ranulf up without even bothering to name him. She claimed him to be a rape-baby and an abomination, and said she wouldn't raise the child of a monster who'd raped her," Hermione said, goading him, suspecting she'd need to trick him into snogging her.

He rattled his chains, snarling fiercely.

"He's fifteen months old. Where the fuck's he been since I was locked up? Where's Lucian?" Greyback demanded through clenched teeth.

"They've been kept by the Ministry. Secluded. Only cared for by elves and a monthly Healer examination," Hermione replied.

"WHAT?" Fenrir roared and his chains groaned as he hit the ends of them.

"You heard me," Hermione shrugged. "No one cared and no one wanted them. When I found out about it, I agreed to foster them and two other boys, Dolohov's son, and Rowle's little boy."

Fenrir growled fiercely.

"They locked my pups up and experimented on them?" he snarled furiously, pulling at his chains now. "You can't have them, bitch. They're mine and I won't have them tainted by you. _You_ and your Werewolf Rights bullshit. Don't pretend you give a fuck about my kind."

"I give a fuck about your sons," Hermione retorted, stepping closer, close enough to touch him, doing so as she slapped his chest angrily. "They're mine now! I'll raise them however I see fit, to be good, upstanding citizens who uphold the law and get a proper education and the love they deserve. And _you_ will stay in this cell and rot!"

Hermione squeaked when he broke free of his chains, jerking free of the ones binding his hands and yanking his legs free of those binding his ankles. The metal groaned and gave with a snap, and he pried open the collar around his throat, showing a strength that unnerved her.

She grunted when he charged her, his hands scooping under the backs of her thighs and lifting her, propelling her backwards until she hit the wall. The air rushed from her lungs on impact and Fenrir Greyback slotted himself between her spread thighs easily, pinning her to the wall.

He paused in his intent to lunge for her throat when she made no effort to fight back or to push him away, or even to call for help.

"You're not afraid of me," he said in a strange voice, his eyes darting from her throat to meet her gaze.

"I'm wondering if, now that you've thrown your tantrum, you might actually _listen_ to what I've been trying to tell you," Hermione replied, her voice shaking a little as she tried to control her reaction. "And put me down, would you? Before one of the Aurors comes bursting in thinking to save my virtue."

"Virtue?" he laughed, leaning into her neck and inhaling deeply. "You gave that up a long time ago, girly. Merlin, you smell fucking delicious!"

"Yes, it's a result of regular bathing," Hermione deadpanned, putting her hands on his enormous shoulders and realising, pressed this close, that he was huge. In all senses of the word. Something that became apparent when he ground his rapidly hardening cock against the seam of her jeans and almost drew a whimper from her lips.

She didn't doubt he could smell her unavoidable state of arousal at the touch, no matter that she was concerned that he'd broken free so easily. She wasn't exactly scared of him, nor was she attracted to him enough for it to matter much, but it'd been sometime since she'd had any action and her nethers were thrumming at the attention.

"You didn't smell this good last time," Fenrir informed her and Hermione gasped when he licked her throat before dragging his teeth very lightly across the skin. "Fucking hell, girly, did you come here to tell me you're claiming my sons, or hoping I'd fuck another one into you?"

"I _did_ ask you to put me down, Greyback," Hermione said dryly, wondering just what counted as 'sexual contact' for the sake of activating her ability to gain custody of his kids. "Honestly, if the guards burst in here and think you're assaulting me, it will make it a great deal more difficult for me to come back next month with pictures of your kids and whatever other messages they might have for you."

Her words seemed to penetrate his excitement and he pulled back slowly to regard her through grey eyes threaded with gold.

"You mean to come back?" he asked quietly, his eyes scanning her face.

"Every month," Hermione nodded.

"Why?"

"Why would I come back? Or why am I adopting your kids?"

"Both," the werewolf shrugged, still not putting her down, but not at all hurting her either. Hermione felt rather fragile in his hands, knowing he was capable of ripping through chains; knowing he was a murderer and a rapist and a cannibal. Yet, she found that from up close, he was… strangely alluring, too.

"I'm adopting them and the other two boys because they need someone to look after them. They're not mistreated where they are right now, but they are ignored and left mostly to their own devices. That would be bad enough in a boy Lucian's age, but Ranulf is still just a baby, Dmitri is almost three and Alrik is barely two. They need a mother. They need proper care, and interaction, and to be taught how to walk and talk. How to read and write. How to dress themselves and how frequently they should bathe. Honestly, when I met them this morning, I was appalled."

Fenrir growled softly under his breath.

"You're getting them out of there?" he asked.

Hermione nodded. "I have a quiet little cottage far away from the eyes of the public to raise them where Lucian's transformations won't be noticed and they can grow up away from the scrutiny of the public."

"Just you?" Fenrir asked. "Thought you and the ginger lad were a thing?"

Hermione shrugged. "Didn't work out. I expect Harry will be around often to help me raise them and to make sure they have a male role model, what with their fathers being locked in prison."

"Why would you come back, girly?" he asked. "You know what I am. You know that the other two are, too. Raising the kids might be some hang-up you've got, but why come back?"

"They're yours," Hermione shrugged her shoulders. "Lucian especially, very much wants you to be a part of his life, Greyback. He asked me to tell you he misses you, and that he loves you. If I can make them happy by letting them grow up knowing that even though you're all in prison and can't be there to raise them, you can at least watch how they're doing and give them some peace of mind that you care."

"What makes you think I do?"

"You attacked me at the very idea of those boys being mistreated," Hermione reminded him. "Broke your chains. Pinned me to the wall. Are you going to put me down, or shall all of our conversations take place this way?"

He glanced down at her body, pinned against the wall, his hands gripping her hips tightly.

"Been a long time since I had a witch, you know?" he commented. "And you smell fucking good."

"You know they'll extend your sentence if you try anything with me, don't you?" Hermione asked.

"I was sentenced to life, Granger. I'll never legally get free. I'm not exactly trustworthy. There's no parole in my future. If you're raising my sons, you'll be doing it alone," he drawled, tilting his head to one side.

"Somehow, I doubt that," Hermione murmured, her eyes searching his and finding a cunning gleam in them. "You realise that if you ever break out of here, my place is the first spot they'll look, knowing I've got your pups."

He nodded his head.

"Don't make the mistake of thinking I'd come human, girly," he smirked.

"Should I expect you shortly?" she asked, frowning at him and not at all liking the idea of him getting loose but doubting they'd be able to hold him for long. Wolfsbane every day was meant to make him docile and weak, but it didn't seem to be having much effect. Hermione suspected, from the gleam in his eyes, that he'd begun metabolising it at a rate that would soon prevent it from actually weakening him at all.

"Probably not for a year, at least. Takes more than the ability to break chains to get loose of this place," Fenrir smirked. "You're still not afraid, even at the notion that I might bust loose and hunt you and my pups down."

"I don't think you actually want to hurt me," Hermione admitted, eyeing him carefully.

"What makes you so sure? I hurt everyone, Granger. And you do smell delicious."

"Yet you've not taken a bite out of me," she commented. "You tried to, last time we met."

"Last time we met you almost killed me, witch."

"Turnabout's fair play, Greyback," Hermione retorted. "You had me tortured and threatened to rape me."

"Still might," he replied, grinning toothily.

"I don't think so," Hermione shook her head. "I take it you're _not_ going to put me down."

"Nope," he said.

"Delightful. Now do you have any further objections to me raising your sons?" Hermione asked.

"Don't turn them into whiny little pansies who can't hold their own in a fight?" he suggested. "And don't try to normalise them by human or wizarding standards. They're wolves, girly. They'll always be wolves."

"They're little boys and I will raise them as such," Hermione corrected him.

He bared his teeth at her and looked amused when Hermione bared her own in return.

"You don't scare easy at all," he grinned. "Not like last time. If I do this…"

He ground his erection against her core and Hermione's breathing hitched. She wondered how twisted she must be and how badly she must need to get laid that she could feel her body responding to him. Animal magnetism practically rolled off him and Hermione hated herself a little for being ensnared.

Greyback chuckled smugly.

"By the time I break out of here, you're going to beg me to fuck you, witch," he practically purred.

"I don't beg," Hermione retorted evenly, squirming ever so slightly and making him hiss at the friction.

"You will," he assured her and Hermione wasn't expecting it when he leaned into her and captured her lips.

His lips were soft and slightly chapped, but firm against hers. She found herself alarmed that he actually knew how to kiss a woman nicely, having expected rough treatment and force. Her hands tightened reflexively on his shoulders and Hermione quivered when he rocked himself against her. Merlin, she was going to have to go home and shag someone silly to avoid this type of reaction in future. What was _wrong_ with her?

"You should go," Fenrir informed her huskily, pulling back as his eyes brightened almost completely to gold. "Before I turn this into a conjugal visit, whether you're entirely willing or not."

Hermione nodded her head, trying to control her breathing and her reaction. She watched the werewolf sniff the air for a moment, before he stooped slightly, turning his head and sniffing at her wrist where Lucian had bitten her.

"My pup nipped you," he commented, lifting the appendage and turning it to the light to see the scarred ring of teeth marks where the boy had bitten her.

"He thought I was going to break up his 'pack'," Hermione nodded. "He's been in that facility so long, and other kids of Death Eaters have come and gone so often, and I don't doubt he's been frequently called an abomination for his partial shift at the full moons, that he feared he'd be left behind, alone. He bit me in protest."

"Tell me the truth, girly," Fenrir said, lifting the appendage to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the scars. "What have they done to my boy?"

"I haven't read all of his file, yet," Hermione admitted. "It was more prudent that I get him out of there."

"Then what are you doing here? Is he still there? Is Ranulf? Did you say _you_ named the pup this morning?" Fenrir frowned.

"I'm not legally allowed to assume custody of any of the boys without consent from you, Rowle and Dolohov, respectively," Hermione explained. "But yes. Up until I got there, the pup was simply referred to as 'Greyback' or 'No Name' or 'the child'. Lucian was calling him 'pup'."

"Why Ranulf?" Fenrir asked.

"It means wolf," Hermione shrugged. "Since Fenrir and Lucian do, too, I figured it would keep in tradition."

Fenrir nodded.

"Granger?" he asked, his mouth still tormenting her wrist.

"Mmm?" Hermione asked, frowning as she watched him and wondering why she wasn't recoiling in disgust or fear.

"This might hurt," he muttered, before he lunged and closed his teeth over her wrist in a perfect ring around the one Lucian had left on her.

Hermione hissed, trying to pull her wrist from his grip but he held onto her elbow, his tongue sliding against her flesh to lap at the blood when it welled.

"That one won't seal with a lick like Lucian's do," he told her. "But it won't infect you, either."

"I know," Hermione nodded. "Trust me, I'm very well educated regarding your condition."

"It's not a 'condition', witch," Fenrir growled softly. "It's a way of life. I'm not a human with a disease. I'm a different species. A magical creature who sometimes takes almost-human form. Even on New Moon days, I'm never completely human. No werewolf is. I don't know what Lupin told you, but you've got us all wrong, girly. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you'll raise my boys right."

Hermione frowned at him. "I've seen the blood work, Greyback. You're human. You're strong, faster and you heal quicker, but you're human. Most of the time."

He shook his head, smirking a little. "When I break out of here," he murmured. "You'll get a few new lessons on lycanthropy, little witch."

"You can't infect me," Hermione warned him. "Ever."

"We'll see," he smirked at her. "Go on and convince the others to let you raise their boys, witch. Your blood is making me hungry and I'm not above fucking and feasting at the same time, from the same source."

"I'm aware," Hermione deadpanned. "Put me down, so I can leave."

He did, lowering her to the ground as though she weighed no more than a feather. Hermione watched him use his claws to tear a thin strip of fabric from the hem of his prison shirt, and she blinked in surprise when he licked her wrist clean of blood a second time before tying the fabric around it in a bandage.

"Put silver and dittany paste on that when you get home, Granger," he told her. "It'll stop the itch."

"It's not itchy," Hermione said, frowning.

"No?" he asked, his brow furrowing slightly before he leaned in and sniffed her again. "You been bitten by my kind before? Other than Lucian?"

"Remus bit me, once," Hermione nodded. She pulled aside the neck of her jumper to show him the faded pink scar in the shape of Remus's teeth marks.

"Bet he tortured himself over it, too," Fenrir smirked, touching the scar lightly. "Did it itch when it healed?"

Hermione shook her head.

Fenrir's eyes trailed over her from head to foot as though she suddenly intrigued him even more.

"Are they supposed to itch?" she asked, frowning. "Bill told me his wounds itched when you attacked him, but we all assumed that was just the nature of all wounds as they heal."

"They itch like a thousand fire-ants crawling under your skin and stinging," Fenrir told her.

"Mine don't," Hermione said.

"You don't have any other bites than the one Lupin gave you?" Fenrir wanted to know. "They should still itch every time, though less as time wears on and your system absorbs the infection, rather than fighting it."

"I've not been bitten by any other werewolf, to my knowledge," Hermione shrugged her shoulders.

"Go anyway," he smirked. "Check every inch of yourself when you get home. I'd say you've been bitten before, girly. More than once. There's a reason you're not scared of me."

"I was scared last time."

"I was running you down like prey last time," he pointed out. "Everyone gets scared when they're running for their lives. You were never scared of Remus either, were you?"

Hermione frowned thoughtfully.

"No," she admitted. "Not even when he transformed in front of me. I tried to approach him and my friends had to pull me away. I howled to draw him closer too, when he was about to attack Harry."

"Did you run?" Fenrir asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Of course I did. And I nearly got savaged, too. I was scared then."

"Of the wolf? Or of the pain you anticipated in the attack?" he wanted to know.

Hermione frowned, unsure of the answer.

"Think about it," he told her. "And Granger, one thing?"

Hermione raised her eyebrows, lifting her gaze to meet his.

"Next month, be sure to plan your visit around both our times of the month," he told her.

Hermione frowned.

"Would mine effect yours?" she asked.

"Even on a New Moon, yours will affect me," he nodded. "Tell my pups I love them, witch."

Hermione nodded, frowning all the more over the turn the visit had taken when Fenrir turned his back on her and walked across the small cell to peer out the window.

"Wait," he said when she reached the door.

Hermione turned back and jumped in surprise to find him suddenly in her personal space. He bent and took possession of her lips once more, his tongue sweeping into her mouth and bringing the taste of mint-toothpaste and blood. Hermione's fingers tangled into his brown hair and she found herself pressing her body against his needily, a little whimper of sound escaping her to be devoured by the werewolf.

He was laughing when he pulled back several minutes later.

"If I were you, I'd be looking into the friends, colleagues and neighbours of your parents around the time of your conception, Granger," he smirked at her. "That is _not_ a normal reaction to being rushed and assaulted by a werewolf."

Hermione nodded speechlessly, her lips tingling madly and her breath coming in sharp little gasps.

"And good luck convincing those other bastards to give you permission to raise their boys," Fenrir laughed. "I recommend provoking Rowle into snogging you, and just stealing the snog from Dolohov."

"You knew I had to snog you to gain custody of Ranulf and Lucian?" she asked.

"Just because I'm a werewolf doesn't mean I'm stupid," he winked at her, turning the doorknob and opening it for her.

Stebbins was waiting on the other side and almost wet himself in terror to see Fenrir loose. Hermione almost laughed when he fumbled his wand, actually squealing in terror when Fenrir growled at him ferociously. The Auror forced the werewolf back into the cell and locked it tightly, warding it to prevent his escape even though Fenrir continued to watch them through the bars on the window into the cell. He seemed entirely too amused.

"Miss Granger?" Stebbins squeaked. "Are you alright?"

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I'm fine, Stebbins. Leave the cranky werewolf alone and take me to my next victim, please."

"Victim?" he said, still squeaking.

Fenrir's laughter followed them all the way to the elevator and Hermione found herself thinking she must be a terrible person for sharing amusements with the likes of Fenrir Greyback.

"See you next month, girly," Fenrir called just before the elevator doors closed and Hermione sighed.

"You mean to return?" Stebbins asked, frowning.

"I'm raising his sons," Hermione nodded. "I have to return."

"Like Shafiq and Yaxley?" Stebbins asked carefully.

"Mhmmm," Hermione nodded.

"Ah, shoot," the man sighed. "Dolohov next, right?"

"Unfortunately," Hermione nodded, making a face at the very idea.

"You look more alarmed by seeing Dolohov than you did to see that monster," he nodded his head toward the top of the elevator, obviously indicating Greyback.

"Yes, well," Hermione sniffed. "That one only threatened to rape me before he handed me over to be tortured. The next one almost killed me."

Stebbins winced.

"This is about kids, right? Their kids? Them ones the Ministry's been bleating about needing homes and care?" Stebbins confirmed.

Hermione nodded her head. "Yes, there are four boys I'll be fostering. Two are Greyback's, one is Dolohov's, and one is Rowle's."

"And you've got to snog 'em each month to maintain custody of the kids, right?" Stebbins said.

"So I'm told."

"You just snogged that monster?" Stebbins pulled a face of utter disgust at the idea of anybody willingly snogging Greyback.

"I don't exactly have much choice, Stebbins. I'd rather not be here having to even look at any of these wretched men ever again, but those poor little boys need care. They need a mother and I can't be their mother without gaining the right to their custody. This is all uncomfortable enough without your judgement, so if you could keep your thoughts about all this to yourself, I'd appreciate it."

"Right," Stebbins muttered as the elevator dinged several floors lower.

Hermione stepped through carefully.

"This one," Stebbins nodded, leading her down the corridor and to one of the doors. Most of the prisoners moved forward in their cells, watching the pair of them walk past, but none of them spoke to her.

"Are they… Silenced?" Hermione asked, frowning as she walked past the cells of both Lestrange brothers.

"Nah, they just learn early on not to cat-call," Stebbins replied, smirking. "Every time they do it, they get hexed. Makes bringing whatever visitors they have feel a bit more secure and keeps us from having to listen to their rot. Half of 'em on this floor are half-mad or worse, anyway. Nothing worse than being shouted at in gibberish."

"They're…" Hermione frowned. "Are they actually unhinged, or they're just classified that way because they followed Voldemort?"

Several hisses sounded in the corridor, coming from each of the prisoners who'd been a Death Eater.

"Bit of both," Stebbins shrugged. "The way we figure it, you've got to be cracked to follow that bastard. They're zealots, the lot of them. Some are more cracked than others. Some shout profanity, some just shout for their freedom."

"I see," Hermione murmured. "And… Dolohov?"

"Shouts in Russian so we ain't got a clue what to make of his bullshit when he gets rowdy. He'll be chained up too, though not as much as Greyback. This lot aren't dangerous enough not to be moved from their cells, so they get moved into the Visitation room when people need to see 'em. There'll be a table between you and he's cuffed to it."

"Right," Hermione muttered. "So… Greyback's cells is always like that? That's where he's kept?"

Stebbins nodded.

"But… there was no bed or anything…" she murmured.

"He's a monster. He don't get a bed, Miss Granger. He gets a cold stone floor and chains for when we've got to have him meet with someone."

Hermione frowned, appalled at the state of living of these prisoners.

"And this lot?" she asked, nodding toward the prisoners in the corridor as they all gripped the bars, leering at her in silence as she went by.

"They get a thin pad for something to sleep on and a ratty blanket. Bucket in the corner. That's it. Them on the top floor usually get a blanket, at least, but Greyback used his to capture some of his guards and hold them until he ripped their throats out. That was early on, before we got him sedated with Wolfsbane every day. We put it in his food and his water to keep him from accessing the wolf."

Hermione nodded.

"Right. It's this one. You want me to come in with you?" Stebbins asked. "He's cuffed to the table, but you being muggle-born and telling him you're taking his kid – he might get violent."

"I've got my wand," Hermione shrugged. "And Greyback broke his chains and pinned me to the wall. I hardly think Dolohov will be able to break his."

"Watch him," Stebbins warned her, putting a hand on her arm to prevent her opening the door. "We sedate these bastards too, but some of them still have some control of wandless magic. He might hit you with something. Keep a Shield Charm up."

Hermione nodded her head and Stebbins released her arm. Turning the handle, she opened the door slowly, taking a deep breath before she walked inside, head held high, to face the man who'd come closest to killing her.


	4. Chapter 4

**ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: As always, Canimal was the mastermind behind fleshing out Dolohov's Russian background and Thorfinn's Norse ancestry.**

* * *

 **Chapter Four**

* * *

Hermione narrowed her eyes at the sight of Antonin Dolohov where he sat, chained to the table in the middle of the room. His prison robes looked somewhat fresh, as though he'd been given a shower and given clean robes for the sake of having a visitor. His dark hair hung in waves about his jaw, looking like it had been cut recently. He wore a full beard, trimmed and shaped to hug his jaw rather than wearing it long like Dumbledore had once done.

" _Lisitsa,"_ he growled, his dark eyes lifting to scan her from head to foot as she entered the room. Stebbins closed the door behind her.

"Dolohov," Hermione greeted, her hands shaking inside her pockets where she gripped her wand tightly.

Dolohov snarled something in Russian that she expected must be very rude. "What the fuck do you want, Mudblood?" he demanded when she didn't respond and instead sat in the chair opposite him.

"Are you aware that you've a son, Dolohov?" Hermione asked him quietly, wondering suddenly if Dmitri had even been born before Dolohov had been caught and imprisoned.

His eyes narrowed on her hatefully for her question and her less than aggressive reaction to his foul language.

"Of course I'm aware," he growled. "What's it to you, bitch?"

Hermione sighed, ignoring the insults for the time being.

"I'm fostering him," Hermione replied evenly. "Dmitri will be moving into my home along with the children of Fenrir Greyback, and Thorfinn Rowle's son."

"Over my dead body," Dolohov snarled, shooting to his feet and looming over her across the table.

"If you insist," Hermione shrugged, before pulling her wand out and training it on him.

"Do it!" he snarled, leaning into it when she dug her wand into his neck threateningly, trying to make him back off.

Hermione stood quickly too, keeping him at wand point.

"I would, you know?" Hermione replied coldly, her hatred for this man pulsating through her skull, heady upon her tongue and singing in her blood. "Gladly."

"No mudblood filth is raising my son," he snarled, obviously not afraid of her despite the gouge she was making in his flesh.

"I'm raising Dmitri," Hermione smirked at him cruelly. "He asked me to pass along his greetings, you know? He was very pleased at the idea of meeting me, and of living with me. He even grew upset when he thought the hopes of his being adopted by me had been dashed when Lucian was a little cross over things in his misunderstanding. Dmitri asked me to say hello to his Daddy for him when he heard I'd be coming here."

Dolohov unleashed a string of foul Russian curses, his dark eyes flashing with hatred at he glared at her.

"You will _not_ contaminate by boy with your filth, _Lisitsa_ ," he growled.

"He's going to grow up calling me, 'Mummy'," Hermione replied, taunting him now, unable to help it. Her hatred for this man was a palpable, living thing.

She wanted to kill him; would do so gladly. He'd killed Remus. He'd killed the Prewett twins, Molly's brothers. He'd murdered countless others in his zealous urge to purge the world of muggleborns and blood traitors, and in his devout following of Voldemort. He'd even almost killed her in the Department of Mysteries and if ever there was anyone whose life she would gleefully end, it was that of Antonin Dolohov.

"He'll come to me when he skins his knees and needs someone to kiss them better. He'll ask me to tuck him into bed and kiss him goodnight. He'll proudly come home from the muggle pre-school I send him to, showing off whatever new thing he's learned, thrilled to have an adult care enough to praise him when he does something good. He'll be _nothing_ like his mad-man of a father. I'll make sure of that," Hermione goaded, her eyes narrowed hatefully, taunting him and hoping that the very ideas she put forward would cause him pain.

Dolohov lunged as far forward as he could while still chained, her wand digging into his throat and leaving a mark. Hermione narrowed her eyes hatefully, making her move. As much as she wanted to Avada him, she needed his 'permission' to get custody of Dmitri. Before he could begin spewing more insults or attempt to wandlessly hex her, Hermione seized hold of his beard, reached up on her toes and snogged him soundly on the mouth.

He seemed so shocked by the move that he didn't actually react to the feel of her tongue in his mouth until she was almost pulling away. The hot slide of his tongue against hers titillated and disgusted her in equal measure. Her grip on his beard kept him from pulling away when he recalled who she was and how much he wanted to murder her, but chained to the table he could neither pull her closer, nor shove her off him.

When she'd snogged him sufficiently enough to get 'permission' Hermione pulled away, wiping her mouth before spitting on the floor in disgust. Dolohov flinched slightly at the extremely unladylike display.

"What the fuck was _that_?" he asked, seeming slightly bewildered and out of breath.

Hermione slanted a glare in his direction even as she stepped around her chair and crossed to the door, ready to leave.

" _Lisitsa_!" Dolohov hissed, trying to get her to answer him when she knocked on the inside of the door, indicating to Stebbins that she was ready to go.

"Any messages for your son, Dolohov?" Hermione asked. "Oh, sorry. My mistake. Any message you'd like me to pass along to _my_ son?"

Dolohov cursed colourfully for a moment.

"What have you done?" he asked. "Why did you… You can't have my son, bitch!"

"He's mine," Hermione shrugged her shoulders unrepentantly. "Nothing you'd like to tell him?"

Dolohov opened his mouth like he might tell her to rot in hell but before he could speak, Stebbins opened the door to let Hermione out of the room. Realising he was about to miss the chance to pass anything along to his son, he paused before calling out to her.

"Wait… Tell him… fuck. Tell him I say _Privet, synotchik_ _. Ya lyublyu tebya. Skoro uvidimsya._ "

Hermione narrowed her eyes on the man as he spoke in Russian. She didn't know enough of the language to know what it meant.

"I won't be able to pronounce that," Hermione told him truthfully.

He narrowed his eyes on her for a moment, obviously suspecting she was being snarky, before he repeated the words slowly so that she might commit them to memory. Hermione made a mental note that to do his heritage justice, she was obviously going to have to ensure that Dmitri learned to speak Russian. She might have to learn it herself, to better teach him and to ensure that his father wasn't telling him things she didn't want the boy to know.

"I don't want you raising my son, Granger," Dolohov said when she nodded her head that she understood enough to pass the message along.

Hermione smirked at him. "Tough."

He cursed her foully the whole way out of the room, shouting after her even when the door was closed, leaving him locked inside, chained to the table. He even managed to fling a wandless hex after her, just as the door closed to block it.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Her last stop was Rowle and Hermione took a deep breath before she was allowed into the room where Rowle was waiting to receive his visitor. Unlike the trepidation she'd felt with the first two, her hands didn't shake as she walked into the room. She wasn't afraid of Rowle the way she'd been afraid of Dolohov and she wasn't nervous, as she'd been to face Fenrir.

Much the same as Dolohov had been, Thorfinn Rowle was chained to the table in the middle of the room. His long, thick mane of blond hair hung wildly, well-past his hulking shoulders. His beard had been trimmed neatly and he looked fresh-washed, his robes clean.

Both golden eyebrows shot toward his hairline when he realised just whom his visitor was.

"Princess?" he asked, surprised. Hermione scowled at the loathed nickname he'd fashioned for her at Hogwarts before trying to murder her.

"Superstar," Hermione needled in return, her voice thick with distaste as she sat down across from him and crossed one knee over the other, staring at him across the small space.

He smirked at her as though suddenly recalling the name she'd picked for him in return, seeming to find humour in the exchange.

"What brings you to see me, Princess?" Rowle asked. "Isn't often that I get visits from such royalty."

"Oh, bite me Rowle," Hermione huffed in frustration, having managed to forget how easily his stupid sense of humour irked her.

"Come closer and I will, witch," he smirked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Are you aware that you have a two year old son, Thorfinn?" Hermione asked, ignoring the suggestions and placing both hands flat upon the table, staring into those brilliant blue eyes that his son had inherited.

"Course I am," Rowle frowned. "What…? Why are you here? Is he hurt?"

Rowle leaned forward, all humour leaving his voice and his posture as his worry for his son took over.

"He's not hurt," Hermione held up a placating hand. "He's… were you aware that Becky Slewyn is dead?"

Thorfinn blinked at her for a moment, no emotion registering on his face.

"When?" he asked gruffly.

"I'm not sure, to be honest," Hermione frowned. "I didn't read the file that closely. In any case, Alrik's mother is now deceased and since you're in here…."

"Who's looking after my son?" Thorfinn asked, his brow furrowing with worry.

"He's been kept by the Ministry, up until today, along with Fenrir's Greyback's two sons and Dolohov's boy, in a facility where the children of incarcerated Death Eaters with no other free, living, or able family to raise them have been kept. Given how cute Alrik is, I don't imagine he's been there long. A number of the other children of Death Eaters in the same situation have been fostered. I've actually come today to let you know that I'll be fostering all four boys, Alrik included."

Rowle's brow furrowed, his blue eyes scanning her face in confusion.

"Why aren't any of Becky's family looking after him?" he asked.

"I don't know, Rowle," Hermione admitted. "My understanding is that with most of your extended family in Finland, and your father, along with most of the remaining Selwyn's in prison alongside you, there isn't anyone left to care for him. The four of them at the Ministry have been… severely neglected. They are left to their own devices, only checked on by a Healer once a month. Everything else – feedings, changes, bathing – that's all bee handled by the house elves and a little by Lucian."

"Lucian?" he asked and Hermione could tell from the way his fists clenched that he was angry but trying to control his temper. She knew it to be a spectacular temper, indeed, so she hoped he controlled it long enough to get her through this.

"Lucian Greyback. The boys I'll be fostering are Lucian – he's seven – and his baby brother, Ranulf, who is fifteen months old. Dmitri Dolohov is almost three and, as you undoubtedly know, Alrik has recently turned two. As the oldest, and having been kept in the facility the longest, Lucian helps the younger boys, but mostly they're very cut off from other people. I plan to take them all in and foster them until such time as their fathers are released or until they're grown."

"You're a mudblood," Rowle said, as though that mattered.

"You're an idiot," she shrugged, deciding that if they were stating simple facts, she'd begin with the most obvious one.

"Why are you here, Princess? Just to tell me that my wife is dead and my son's an orphan because I'm locked up? You can't claim him for yourself."

"I _am_ claiming him," Hermione replied, narrowing her eyes on the huge wizard coolly. "I could no sooner leave any of those boys in that place than I could abide anyone receiving such poor treatment, even those like you, who deserve it."

"You want to raise my son?" he asked, eyeing her strangely at the steely resolve he could hear in her voice. "Greyback's boys? Dolohov's? We've all tried to murder you, Princess. What motivation could you possibly have to care for the spawn of such men?"

Hermione sighed, leaning back in her chair and eyeing the blond across the table.

"Honestly?" she asked, lifting one eyebrow. He nodded. "I want to raise them because I hate the feeling I live with every day knowing that I've parents out there who don't have a clue who I am and so don't know that they're supposed to give a damn about me. I hate the idea of those boys – of anyone – living with the pain of being orphaned that way. I also have the time, the inclination, and the logic to look past the prejudice those boys have faced because of who their fathers are and all that you lot have done. Right now they are being punished because of you lot. They're neglected. They're unloved. They're ignored. They're starved for attention and stimulation and anyone to teach them how to be human beings, let alone to teach them how to grow up to be well-mannered young men within wizarding society."

Thorfinn eyed her across the table, leaning forward slowly and resting his palms on the table, unclenching his fists to flatten them against the smooth, worn wood.

"You're barely grown yourself, Princess," he told her quietly. " _I_ was too young when Alrik was born and I've got six years on you. You're, what? Nineteen? Twenty?"

"I'm twenty-three," Hermione corrected him. "And before you ask, I'm unmarried and not even seeing anyone in any romantic sense. However I have a house where I can raise those boys beyond the reach of the press, and I've family and friends willing to support me and assist me as I do this."

Thorfinn tipped his head to one side, those bright blue eyes seeming to dive right into her very soul, searching for answers to questions he hadn't asked.

"Why throw your life away?" he asked quietly. "For all that I recall teasing you and almost killing you, Princess, even I can admit that you were alarmingly bright at twelve. I don't imagine you've grown stupid as you aged. You could do anything you wanted, mudblood or not. You're brighter than just about anyone I've ever met and you're the witch who helped Potter take down the Dark Lord. You just say the word and doors will open for you wherever you want to go and whatever you want to do. Why would you risk it all, your entire future and probably a very real shot at being Minister for Magic one day, to raise the children of men who tried to murder you?"

Hermione sighed, surprised that of the three men she'd met with today, Rowle would be the one to ask such questions.

"No one else will," Hermione said softly. "The daughters of Death Eaters – like Yaxley's daughter – were all fostered out. Greyback's boys… Honestly, Rowle, the younger of those two didn't even have a _name_ until I gave him one this morning. I don't think you understand the amount of prejudice those kids are facing. It's not just a matter of you lot being Death Eaters, murderers or what have you. Those poor boys are being shunned. Ranulf's mother was raped to conceive him and no one wanted to even name the boy. Lucian, understandably, has had a hard time being fostered because of what he is. Turning half-way into a wolf every full moon isn't exactly the most appealing trait a child can have. Dmitri, I'm sure, has been left where he is because Dolohov's crimes are well known and because I suspect the boy is frighteningly intelligent. Alrik…"

Hermione's eyes softened as she recalled the way the little blond boy had toddled over and sat himself in her lap, playing with her curls.

"You're known for setting everything ablaze, Rowle. I suspect that even if anyone were game enough to consider fostering him and risking your wrath, they feared the idea of having to face you to get custody of him."

Thorfinn's brow furrowed slightly. "And yet you're here."

Hermione nodded gently. "And I've more reason to hate you than most," she said. "Look, the fact is that there are only a few ways to gain custody of a child when they're made wards of the Ministry. You have to give consent to have me raise him."

"And you think that coming here and asking nicely will get it?" he lifted on eyebrow.

"I think there's more than one form of consent," Hermione replied quietly.

Something flickered across his face.

"I'll not give you written or verbal consent, Princess. If you want to raise my boy, you'll have to get permission another way."

Hermione suspected that, like Greyback, he knew she'd have to snog him or be intimate with him in order to gain permission to raise Alrik. And that he knew she'd have to come back every month to reconfirm that permission. He wasn't going to tell her she could raise the boy when he could score a snog every month and ensure he had a visitor every month for the foreseeable future.

Leaning forward once more, Hermione fixed her eyes on his lips. He leaned back out of reach, smirking slightly.

"You'd really do it, wouldn't you?" he asked. "You want to raise my son bad enough that you'll forget my attempts on your life and what a bastard I was to you at school. That you'll snog me stupid and waltz your pretty little arse out of here to take him on home with you."

Hermione hated the fact that a blush climbed her cheeks at the vaguely flirtatious tone in his voice.

"Would you prefer that I leave him in the custody of the Ministry, where he will fail to develop normally, not learning to talk or to walk properly? Not learning how to dress himself or how often he should bathe?" Hermione challenged.

"Not at all, Princess," he smirked. "I want someone to raise my boy right until they let me out of this place and I can do it myself."

"Are you up for parole?" Hermione frowned at him.

"Not for another five years," he shook his head. "But I reckon they'll grant parole when the time comes. Then what, Princess? You going to just give my boy up when he'll spend the next five years calling you 'Mummy'?"

Hermione's heart clenched at the very idea.

"No," she admitted. Already the idea of letting any of those little boys go hurt her and she hadn't even spent more than twenty minutes with them.

"Cute, isn't he? Thorfinn smirked. "So cute that you're already attached. But if you want to raise him, you're going to have to snog me and come on back every month to do it again and to keep me appraised on how he's growing. And I'd reckon, that after five years of doing that, you might just be amenable to the idea of letting me give you one of my sons all your own."

Hermione's cheeks turned scarlet against her will.

"I've no interest in shagging you or birthing you another son, Rowle. Not when you can't even raise the one you've already got," she said coldly.

"Leave then," he shrugged, narrowing his eyes slightly. "Leave without permission and let someone else raise my boy."

Hermione hated him in that moment because he knew he had her. She wouldn't risk the idea of anyone else taking in Alrik and she wouldn't leave the boy behind when she'd promised him – promised all four boys – that she would raise them.

"I can't do that," Hermione said through gritted teeth.

"Determined little thing, aren't you?" Thorfinn smirked at her. "Always were."

"If you want this ridiculous form of permission to be instigated, you're going to have to lean forward, Superstar," Hermione said, reaching for a little bravado.

His grin widened into something decidedly wicked.

"No."

"No?" Hermione frowned. "You _want_ me to leave Alrik alone at the Ministry? I've already got permission from Greyback and Dolohov."

"You want to raise my boy, Princess, then you better come here," he said, widening his arms as far as his chains allowed.

"I'm not coming that close," Hermione protested. "You could crush me with your bare hands, chained to the table or not, and we both know it."

"Princess, if you expect me to trust you to raise my son and treat him well, you're going to have to learn to trust me, too," he argued. "So come here. I won't put his life in your hands if you won't put yours in mine."

"The last time my life was anywhere near your hands, you almost killed me," she reminded him, frustrated even as she got to her feet.

"That was ten years ago," he rolled his eyes.

"It was five years ago in that coffee shop," she argued.

"You haven't paid for that memory charm, yet," he nodded.

"You know I used a memory charm on you?" she frowned. "But, undoing them is…."

"Excruciating," Rowle finished for her. "Believe me, Princess, I'm aware. So how am I to trust you to raise my kid when that's how you treated me?"

"I'd never harm a child!" Hermione said indignantly.

"Prove it," he shrugged. "Climb into my lap and snog me like you're trying to conceive him with me yourself, witch. Or go home and let someone else see to my boy."

"I'm not sitting in your lap, Rowle," Hermione said, standing and stomping her foot in frustration.

He simply stared. And waited. Narrowing her eyes, Hermione made to stomp around the table but he shook his head.

"No way you're climbing into my lap from the side with these chains on me, Princess. Crawl across that table," he smirked.

"You're enjoying this," Hermione accused him.

"Course I am," he smirked. "Been locked up a long time. And since I didn't even know Becky was dead, I don't think I need to explain that my wife wasn't fond of me."

"Gee, I wonder why?" Hermione snaked coldly.

"Because she was forced to marry me by the Dark Lord when he meddled with all his followers, wanting heirs," Thorfinn shrugged despite the rhetorical nature of her barb. "She got tired of fucking me in sixth year and only did it for the sake of keeping herself alive. Been a long time, Granger. So don't be stingy."

"I despise you," Hermione informed him, pleased she was wearing jeans as she perched her bum on the edge of the table before spinning and using her heels to hook over the edge of the table on his side and dragging herself forward. She refused to crawl the way he wanted her to.

His hands, still in their chains, gripped her ankles, helping to pull her toward himself until she'd slipped her legs either side of his waist, in the gaps created where he was chained to the table.

"All the way, Princess," he said, his hands settling on her hips and lifting her off the table and onto his lap with all the ease Hermione might've had at lifting Crookshanks.

His strength scared her, if she was honest, and she wondered why he alarmed her when Greyback hadn't, despite the fact that Greyback had broken his chains and pinned her to the wall. Thorfinn hummed appreciatively when she was sat upon his groin firmly, straddling him as though he were a horse she planned to ride. His hands trailed from their grip on her hips, shifting around and down to settle upon her arse.

Hermione narrowed her eyes all the more when he used the grip to roll her against himself whilst arching up underneath her, creating friction.

"Must you?" she asked dryly, forced to rest her hands against his chest when the movement threatened her balance.

"I really must," Thorfinn assured her, smirking wickedly and obviously enjoying her annoyance almost as much as he was apparently enjoying having her straddle him. At least he was enjoying it if the rapidly growing lump under her was any indication.

Figuring that she might as well get this over with as quickly as possible, lest he enjoy himself a little too much, Hermione sighed and leaned closer, intent on snogging him. He was chuckling darkly even as their lips met and Hermione hated herself for the little thrill of desire that rushed through her. Despite evidence to the contrary, he didn't steal the kiss from her lips or force one upon her. He coaxed one from her lips slowly, tenderly, as though he were kissing an adored lover rather than a prior enemy come prickly ally.

His lips were soft and warm against hers, just brushing lips on lips for the longest time until Hermione's eyes slid closed and, unbidden, she found herself leaning into the sweet sensation. His tongue flicked out carefully, tracing the shape of her lower lip and then the seam of her lips until Hermione parted them, her tongue slipping out to meet his tentatively. The feeling that rushed through her when he deepened the kiss, still rolling her hips in his hands, grinding against her hungrily, stole her breath.

Hermione hated the soft little sound he coaxed from her as he took his time devouring her. For a man known for his quick temper and wild, rash actions in a fight, he was methodical in his seduction. Hermione hated him a little for that, too.

When she finally pulled back her brain was thoroughly fuzzy with desire and her body throbbed and ached needily. She found her fingers tangled into his wild blond hair and her breath came in sharp little gasps as she blinked her eyes open to stare at him. Thorfinn hummed appreciatively as he opened his eyes slowly to meet her gaze, another wicked grin curling his lips.

"Seems I'm not the only one who hasn't been laid in a while, eh, Princess?" he teased huskily and Hermione blushed crimson.

"Let go of me now," she commanded, hating how breathless she sounded.

"Should've known all that time that it was unresolved sexual tension causing that spark between us," Rowle murmured, looking thoughtful, rolling her hips against himself and arching into her one more time.

"It wasn't. There is no spark," Hermione assured him.

"Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night, Princess," Rowle laughed as Hermione began pushing at his shoulders and wriggling in his lap, trying to sit up and get free of him.

He lifted her easily, setting her back onto the table and actually letting her go.

"Do me a favour, Princess?" he practically purred as Hermione extracted herself from his grip, trying to slide backward across the table beyond his reach.

"What?" she asked warily.

Thorfinn smirked.

"Wear a dress next month?" he asked, his eyes glittering with lust as he caught the backs of her knees before she could pull away completely. He leaned down between them, as though imagining burrowing his face between her thighs were she wearing a dress.

Hermione purposely snapped her legs closed around his face, catching him about the ears with her knees.

"Not a chance," she retorted, pulling out of his grip and sliding to the far side of the desk when he began to laugh once more.

"Tease," he accused her. "Fine, but I do have a genuine favour to ask."

Hermione narrowed her eyes on him, straightening her shirt as she stood once more, preparing to leave.

"Since what we just did grants you access to everything I've got, I need you to go to Rowle Tower – watch out for the trick step seventh from the top on the first flight, yeah? Go up the stairs and into the study at the top. It's warded to keep nosy Selwyns out, so keep your wand on you. The password is ' _framganga_ '. Say it."

Hermione frowned at him.

"Is that Old Norse?" she asked curiously.

Thorfinn nodded. "Say it, woman. If you mispronounce it, you'll get hexed."

"Why would I need the password to access your study. I won't be living in Rowle Tower. The barbarism of this law that means snogging allows a witch access to everything a man has, including his children, is beyond ludicrous. The only reason I'm not pushing to have it outlawed immediately is because it allows me to raise the boys. I don't want your house, or your study."

"You need to get into the study to get the key to my Gringott's vault," he argued.

"I don't want your money, either, Rowle," Hermione frowned at him. "I have plenty."

"Not enough to raise four hungry boys, you don't," he assured her. "I assume that you'll be quitting whatever job you currently have in order to raise them when they're all so young?"

Hermione scowled at him. "I wasn't planning on it, actually."

"You're going to leave them all with a babysitter?" he challenged. "Why bother fostering them if you're just going to treat them the same way the Ministry does, Princess? Look, I get it that you're a feminist and all about equal rights and all that, but you'll be raising _four_ wizards under the age of ten. That's a full time job, Granger. Especially if you want to avoid botching it. Just get the key to my bloody vault and take whatever you need, there's no way you'll make a dent in my inheritance. As for not living at the Tower, you're mad. Greyback is hardly going to have anything better than a mud-hut and Dolohov's a distrustful bastard. I wouldn't want you anywhere near his place, let alone kids there. The cursed objects alone will kill you all inside of a week."

"I have a house," Hermione protested. "Far away from where the media can spy on us. I won't be accused of gold-digging by taking over your house when I take on those boys."

Thorfinn grit his teeth for a moment, anger flashing in his eyes before it ebbed just as suddenly.

"Always such a stubborn little thing," he murmured, eyeing her strangely once more.

Hermione folded her arms.

"Repeat the password, Princess. _Framganga_ ," he pronounced it for her.

"Why?" she demanded.

"Because there's something else in that office I want you to retrieve to bring with you next month," he said. "A pensieve."

Hermione's breath left her in a rush at the idea as he said it. He wanted to be able to watch the memories of his son growing up, even if he couldn't be there in person.

" _Framganga,"_ she attempted, not bothering to put up any more of a fight.

" _Framganga_ ," he repeated, stressing the syllables carefully.

"You really are descended from Vikings, aren't you?" she sighed, repeating the password again until he nodded that she'd gotten it right.

"Yep," he smirked. "Now, while you're fetching that pensieve, get the bloody vault key and use whatever you need, Princess. I mean it. You're raising my son, witch, and I want you to do it right. Don't half-arse it scrimping on things those kids need and don't half-arse raising them by trying to juggle a career, too. Use what you need, live in the Tower if you want to. No one will stop you. As long as you're snogging me every month, you have all the rights of being my wife. Hell, you could sign your name _Hermione Rowle_ and the Ministry would be forced to accept it."

"If that's the case I feel that Hermione Granger-Greyback-Dolohov-Rowle is a bit of a mouthful," Hermione replied sarcastically.

"Is a bit," Thorfinn laughed. "But it's technically your legal title as long as you're snogging the three of us, you know?"

"How does no one know about this law?" Hermione frowned. "People snog all the time."

"All the old pureblood families know," Thorfinn shrugged, "There's a reason marriages are still arranged and people value the importance of chastity in the wizarding world. Only works in the favour of witches, though. To keep us debauchers in line, see? I could go snog some heiress and she'd still be entitled to all _my_ shit, not the other way around."

"Then snogging the three of you technically classifies me as a polyamorist," Hermione frowned.

Thorfinn shrugged his huge shoulders. "Sure does. Polyandry isn't illegal in the wizarding world, you know?"

"I could have three husbands in the legal sense?" Hermione frowned.

Thorfinn shrugged again. "Well, see that's where is gets complicated. The law works in your favour that, yeah, if you snog all three of us you're entitled to our money, our homes, and our kids. But it's not in the sense that you _own_ them … it's, uh… well, technically, when the curse was instigated, it was meant to protect women in the sense of ensuring that no witch who got knocked up by a married man would go hungry or uncared for, see? So this thing you're doing allows you have access not because you'd own any of them or own us… but because it means that _we_ own you. In the wizarding world marriage is still very much about the witch being given to the wizard in the basest sense, Princess. You snogging me doesn't mean you own me, it means I own you the same way I'd own a dog or a house-elf, technically. You get all the perks of accessing everything else I own, but you also have the human rights to be treated like a princess. Literally. The curse, when it was cast, was very much for ensuring we wizards kept it in out trousers to avoid ending up with what legally counted as ten wives all mooching off us and being treated like royalty – if we could afford it."

Hermione frowned.

"But… that's so… I mean it's good that should a witch be raped, she would be entitled to a portion of the offender's money and such things to raise a child should one be conceived. But it seems very much like recipe for disaster. It practically invites gold-digging tarts to throw themselves at you. With things like Love Potion on the market, surely it ought to have been outlawed."

"The use of Love Potion negates the magic that flares, causing the link – the bond – to refrain from forming. The kiss has to be consensual."

"But I…" Hermione frowned. She'd pounced on Dolohov, rather than having him agree to kiss her.

"You had to grab Dolohov," Thorfinn smirked. "Thought so. Did he kiss you back, or just fight you off?"

"He kissed back, eventually, when the shock wore off," Hermione admitted, blushing.

"There you go, then. It worked. If both parties willingly participate, the bond forms and the witch gets everything the wizard has."

"But it's so one-sided," Hermione frowned at the wizard sitting before her, looking amused. "I mean, what's to stop me from going to your house, raiding it of everything you have and never returning. It wouldn't count as robbery because I'd be entitled to it at the time when I took it. And it's entirely in favour of the witch. You don't have any rights or get any perks as a result of this thing. I mean, sure, _this_ time you do because I'm not a gold-digging tramp, I just need permission to raise your son, but what about in instances where witches snog people and make off with their money? You get nothing."

"Get a decent snog out of it," Thorfinn smirked, shrugging. "And there's a registry at the Ministry, any witch found abusing the system in such a manner would be prosecuted. Every time a bond like this forms, it's magically recorded at the Ministry. Whomever you've snogged will be listed as someone who is considered your paramour, Princess. Most people think nothing of it if nothing's claimed, but for a month after snogging any wizard you've ever kissed, you're technically listed as his wife, you know?"

"Even if he's already married?" Hermione frowned.

Thorfinn nodded. "There are books on all this in the library at the Tower," he said. "Feel free to peruse them, Princess. You are, after all, technically my wife."

"Don't say that," Hermione shuddered.

"Hermione Rowle has a nice ring to it, Princess," he teased.

"It doesn't. And I'd never give up my own surname."

"Hermione Granger-Rowle sounds pretty good, too," he shrugged. "And you're now the legal mother of my son. Fighting the magic is useless, love."

Hermione frowned at him. "I'm looking into this law. It's barbaric and something needs to be done about it."

"You think centuries of wizardkind haven't tried to amend it?" he raised his eyebrows. "This particular 'law' isn't a law at all. It's a curse cast over all of wizard-kind, laid down by Morgana and Nimue at the dawn of all wizards when Merlin was caught shagging both of them, Princess. There's no undoing this curse."

"We'll see," Hermione muttered.

"Who's going to undo it, Granger? You?" he arched on eyebrow at her. "If you do, you'll lose custody of those boys unless the three of us grant it verbally."

"It would make more sense for you to just do that, you know," Hermione pointed out.

"Then what guarantee would I have that you'll come back every month to see me, Princess? How will I know how Alrik's developing if you don't come back?"

"I'd come back regardless," she frowned. "I wouldn't keep you and your son apart – any of you – even if you are all wretches. Those boys love their fathers and I'd enjoy the guilt you'd all feel knowing they were growing up without you."

"Sadistic little bitch, aren't you?" Thorfinn smirked at her. "You'd have made a decent Death Eater, in another life."

"I champion the rights of others," she pointed out.

"So do we. The rights of the wizarding purebloods to hold position above the commoners who muddy up their bloodlines by breeding with muggles."

"My parents were both muggles, you idiot!" Hermione snapped. "And if not for me, your son would grow up without learning to talk properly."

"We all make exceptions, Princess. I'd make one for you," he winked at her. Hermione scowled. "Pretty little thing like you, with brains like yours? You have to know that almost every pureblood would've made an exception for _you_. We all even took bids on who'd get to keep you as a pet, had our side won the war."

" _Excuse me_?" Hermione hissed, her eyes widening in horror.

Rowle smirked at her.

"Don't look so surprised, Princess. Every bloodline needs a random injection of new blood to keep the inbreeding from backfiring. More of the old Houses than I'd reckon you want to know about bid to keep you for themselves. We're all about purity, but inbreeding is bad business and muggle blood can be overlooked for the sake of raw magical power, which you, Baby-girl, have in droves. Best be grateful your side won, actually. You'd have been auctioned off to the highest bidder, and I reckon that kid of Malfoy would've put in a bid. They've more money than anyone so they'd have won, Dark Lord's favour or not."

Hermione reeled at his words. She wanted to slap him. She wanted to call him a liar. She wanted to hex him for suggesting such things.

"You're saying…" she frowned, trailing off. "But the entire war was waged against the idea of people like me being a part of the wizarding world."

"You know a better solution than squirrelling you all away to carry on our bloodlines with powerful witches? The weak ones were done away with, of course, and the wizards. Don't need those. But powerful muggleborn witches are rare, Princess. The things that would've been done to _you_ ," he shook his head slowly, his eyes trailing over her from head to foot. "You'd have been used up like a brood mare, a new kid fucked into you every year."

"The whole point of the war was that my blood is too dirty to consider it," she frowned.

"Aye, but you're powerful, Princess. We overlook dirt for power. You think we _wanted_ the likes of a half-blood orphan leading us?" he raised an eyebrow in challenge. "Aye, we knew he was a half-blood but the Dark Lord was as powerful as he was ruthless. Power trumps blood, every time."

Hermione shook her head, disgusted at the very idea that the Death Eaters believed blood mattered to begin with.

"I'm leaving now," she said.

"Don't forget the password, Princess. And watch that trick step, yeah?" he smirked at her as though he hadn't just been discussing an alternate, grisly fate for her should the war have gone the other way.

"It's unlikely I'll be attending your house in the next month, Rowle," Hermione rolled her eyes.

"You should. Don't know how long Becky's been dead, but I'd say there's a decent amount of Alrik's gear still at the Tower. Toys, clothes, that sort of thing. And I mean it about the vault. Use it however you want."

"I'm not going to use your money to spoil Alrik when the other boys don't have the same privilege," Hermione said, exasperated.

"Use it for all four, Princess," he rolled his eyes. "I owe Greyback a few favours, and Dolohov's like an uncle to me, anyway. And it's not like you want to go digging around in _his_ place. Been empty too long after his last stint in this shit-hole. Never know what you'll come across. You need money, you use what's in my vault, Granger. I mean it."

Hermione sighed, deciding against arguing further and knowing she'd do as she saw fit, rather than as he commanded, anyway.

"I'll see you next month, Superstar," she said, heading for the door and knocking on it until Stebbins unlocked it to let her out.

"Don't forget the pensieve," Rowle called after her. "And the dress!"

Hermione flipped him the bird for his last comment and his roaring laughter followed her all the way out of the prison.

* * *

 **Russian Translations:**

 _Lisitsa_ \- Vixen.

 _Privet, synotchik_ \- Hi, sonny.

 _Ya lyublyu tebya -_ I love you.

 _Skoro uvidimsya -_ I'll see you soon.

 **Norse Translation:**

 _Framganga_ \- Advance.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

* * *

When she returned to the mainland, Hermione's mind was suddenly racing when it occurred to her that her cottage was not equipped for the arrival of four young boys. She'd, of course, done some initial planning before going to the Ministry to consider fostering them at all; child-proofing the house by the Ministry standards and purchasing some toys, bedding and books for children.

But she wasn't prepared for _four_ of them. She would need to stop by her cottage to ensure there would be enough beds before she could even think about picking the boys up, no matter how much she wanted to get them out of Ministry hands and into the safety of her care. She was loathe to admit that it might not be a bad idea to stop at Rowle Tower after all, not for the vault key Rowle had been so insistent she take, but to see if any of Alrik's things were there. Depending on how long Becky Selwyn had been dead, and whether the woman had moved back to Selwyn Hall before her death when Thorfinn had been incarcerated, there might not be much, or might only be things he'd grown out of, but they might fit Ranulf.

Hermione hadn't been prepared for a baby as young as Ranulf. She had been expecting that any kids she took on would be closer to Lucian's age than the three toddlers she was taking in, in addition to the seven year old. If she was being honest, she was more than a little bit terrified. Staring down the barrel of a future raising four young boys, all of whom had fathers in prison, looked like it might be a rather lonely existence, now that she thought about it.

Oh, she'd have the boys of course, but Hermione was thinking that everyday tasks like folding laundry, cooking, cleaning and even sleeping were going to be interrupted. She'd babysat Teddy Lupin often enough to know that raising a young child was not easy, especially a magical child. Without their fathers to help her, Hermione was thinking she might have to get used to living on no sleep for the next ten years or so. After all, she didn't want to neglect the boys any more than they'd suffered so far in the hands of the Ministry.

How she was going to find someone to sleep with, let alone find the time or the privacy to do so when she had four boys under ten to raise was a mystery to her. Hermione pressed her lips together as she apparated to her cottage and hurried inside.

She almost had a heart attack when she entered her kitchen and discovered a wizard lounging upon her breakfast bar, a cup of tea in his hands and his hair all in a mess.

"Bloody hell, Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, lowering her wand and leaning against the door-frame, clutching at her chest to still the rapid pounding of her heart.

"You alright?" he laughed, apparently unrepentant over scaring her half to death.

"I just wasn't expecting you," she admitted. "What are you doing here?"

Harry frowned at her, jumping down off the bench still dressed in his Quidditch training gear. He set down his cup and crossed to kitchen toward her.

"Did you think I'd be anywhere else today?" he frowned. "You know my training ends at eleven. You said you were going in to foster the Death Eater kids today. Of course I'm here. I want to help. Where's the kid?"

He peered around her, putting his hands on her shoulders to steer her from side to side as though the child might be hiding behind her legs.

"Kids," Hermione corrected. "Harry… there are four of them."

"Bloody hell," Harry said, staring into her face. "Where are they?"

"Not here, yet," she admitted. "I need to pick them up from the Ministry. I had to get permission from their fathers to raise them, you see, for custody purposes. I… Harry, they're all so little. The oldest is seven but the youngest is only fifteen months old."

"Shit," Harry sighed. "Whose are they?"

"They're all boys," Hermione said. "Two are the sons of Fenrir Greyback, the oldest and the youngest, ironically. Their names are Lucian and Ranulf. There is also Dmitri Dolohov, and Alrik Rowle. Dmitri's almost three and Alrik is two."

Harry's eyes widened in surprise at their young ages.

"I mean… I knew it took a while for the Aurors to round them all up, but… bloody hell, Hermione. Are you going to be alright raising four boys that young? I know what a handful Teddy is and there's only one of him."

"They're… Harry, they're so neglected," Hermione whispered, feeling tears well in her eyes. "The Ministry is horrible. The only interaction they have with humans is a visit from the healer once month to make sure they're healthy. That's it. House elves handle everything else from bathing and feeding them, to changing nappies, and seeing to them. No one plays with them. No one talks to them. They're just locked away as though they're prisoners themselves. I don't know if I can raise the four of them very well, all by myself, but it won't be hard to raise them better than the Ministry has done so far."

"Bloody hell," Harry muttered, pulling her into a tight hug. "Well, I'm here to help. What can I do? We already kid-proofed this place."

"I need to make sure there are enough beds," Hermione told him, clinging to him for a moment and breathing in his familiar scent. "And I'll need help to bring them all here from the Ministry. I don't want to risk splinching them by trying to apparate five of us all at once. I… I also need to stop at Rowle Tower to check and see if there's anything there of Alrik's – he was the last one brought in after his mother died, so if I can find some of his things, that will help. I don't have any idea if Lucian ever had things, and I know Ranulf didn't…. Harry, Ranulf didn't even have a _name_ this morning."

"What?" Harry asked. "How could he not have had a name?"

"Fenrir raped his mother to impregnate her shortly before he was caught," Hermione explained. "She kept the baby and gave birth, obviously, but she gave him up and refused to keep him after that. She didn't give him a name, only said he was Greyback's rape-baby, and that was it. When they realised he was Greyback's, no one else wanted to claim him and he's been raised, until now, by Lucian – his elder half-brother – who was referring to him as 'Pup' since he had no other name. I had to pick a name for the boy this morning."

Harry's expression flickered with anger, disgust, and sadness for the boy, obviously knowing firsthand what it was like to be raised by people who didn't give a damn about you.

"What can I do?" he asked softly.

"Help me?" Hermione whispered. "It will take a while to develop a routine with them, and honestly, to even get them to trust me. I know you've got training and matches and things, but any help you can offer will be a Godsend."

Harry smiled at her gently before pulling her closer to press a soft kiss to her forehead. "You couldn't get rid of me if you tried, love. Come on, let's fix the beds. Did you say something about Rowle Tower?"

"Yes. Oh… So, to get custody of the boys I have to have permission from their fathers. Only, it's Rowle, Dolohov and Greyback, so the likelihood of written or verbal agreement is obviously very low. But there's an archaic law that means that snogging them – having sexual contact with them – means I get access to everything they own."

"What, seriously?" Harry asked, looking shocked.

"Yes. So be careful who you kiss from now on, Harry Potter. Anyone who knows about that law could waltz into your bank vault and take whatever you have, you know? I could, essentially, do that with all three of the boy's fathers. Anyway, Rowle mentioned that some of Alrik's things will be at the Tower, and asked me to grab a few things from his place, namely a pensieve to take back to Azkaban next month to show them how their boys are growing."

"Wait…" Harry frowned at her, stopping her before she could climb the stairs. "You had to… snog them?"

Hermione blushed, nodding. "It's the only way to keep custody of the boys. And unless I shag them and get pregnant, I have to 'renew the contract', as it were, every month if I want to keep the boys. So I'll be having to snog those wretches for the foreseeable future until they're released or until the boys are grown."

Hermione watched the expressions on Harry's face dance. Confusion. Hurt. Anger. Disgust. A little betrayal. She could tell he didn't like the idea of her snogging the Death Eaters.

"Hermione… are you sure you want to go through with this?" he asked quietly. "That's the rest of your life, right there. Who's going to want to date you if you've got four boys who aren't even yours _and_ you've got to snog their Dad's in prison every month? You said the youngest is only fifteen months old and I know for a fact that Greyback was sentenced to life. If you're to raise Ranulf to adulthood, you'll have to spend the next fifteen and a half years snogging Fenrir to keep the kid. Who is going to date you if you've got to do that? You're… you'd be giving up everything for them, Hermione."

She searched his face, knowing that he was trying his best to speak to her reasonably about it rather than flying off the handle over the idea. She knew it didn't sit well with him.

"It's just snogging, Harry," she whispered. "I mean, they push their luck. Of course they do, they're Death Eaters and they're locked in prison where sex isn't easily achievable. But it's just snogging. I just have to snog them every month and then I can keep the kids."

"I don't think you're hearing me, Hermione," Harry said softly. "This is the rest of your life. The likelihood that some bloke will put up with you raising four kids who aren't his and aren't even yours, is slim. Adding insult to injury by having to snog three bastards every month to keep those kids and your chances of finding a bloke drop pretty low, love. You'll be almost forty by the time those kids are all of age, Hermione. Forty. Do you understand that?"

"I know," Hermione whispered, her throat tight. "But Harry, I can't leave them there. They're… they're neglected. They have no interaction with other people. They have no social skills, I don't think Ranulf can even talk, though he should be able to by now. How could I leave them? And what's the prospect of marriage when held up against saving the lives of four innocent children?"

A tear trickled down her cheek, knowing that she'd gotten herself into what could only be called a bad situation. The type of men who might be willing to overlook her needing to snog three other men once a month and who might not mind raising other men's children weren't prevalent in the wizarding world. She might be brainy and she might be famous, but there were precious few who might put up with what she'd signed on for.

If the situation was reversed, Hermione didn't imagine she'd be willing to date a man who was raising the children of incarcerated witches and snogging them every month, so she didn't blame anyone for the idea that this situation might leave her without dating prospects for the rest of her life. But she couldn't leave them.

"Who was going to date me anyway?" she asked, trying to be brave as she shrugged. "There isn't anyone willing to do it, and you know it, Harry. I'm too smart and too intimidating for most wizards – it's one of the reasons Ron and I failed as a couple. I'll just… I don't know, find someone to assist me with my sexual needs when they arise and the rest of the time I'll be alone. I'll be fine. I'll have the kids and it's not like there aren't plenty of witches who don't have husbands. Look at Professor McGonagall. She's wildly successful, but she's unattached."

"She's been married twice, Hermione," Harry reminded her. "McGonagall's alone because she's too scared to date anyone else given that her first two husbands ended up dead not long after marrying her."

Hermione sighed.

"Well, what's your solution then, Harry? I can't just leave those boys in the care of the Ministry. They're treated like prisoners. No, they're treated worse than prisoners. At least their father's get fed regularly and are allowed to bathe. These poor boys don't even know _how_ to change their underwear! I can't leave them there and if rescuing them comes at the price of my dating life, well, I'll just have to live with that."

Harry frowned at her for a long moment.

"You don't have to do it, Hermione," he told her. "Let someone else take them."

"There is no one else!" Hermione stamped her foot. "There is no one else who's even bothered to try adopting them, Harry, except one crazy person who would likely molest them or whore them out to other twisted bastards. Don't you understand that? I had no dating prospects, anyway. Just the other day you and I were talking about being fuck buddies because we're both short on dating options outside of people who want our fame or your money."

Harry sighed, nodding his head.

"Alright," he held up his hands. "I get it, alright. I don't want to see them left in a bad spot any more than you do, Hermione. I'm just saying that this is going to fuck up the rest of your life and I want to make sure you won't be crying on my shoulder two years from now when people refuse to date a witch who is raising four kids that aren't hers and who has to snog three other blokes every month."

Hermione nodded, hurrying up the stairs and wielding her wand, conjuring extra beds for the boys. Lucian and Ranulf would have to share rooms for the time being until she had time to do some renovations to make more room in the small cottage. Harry followed after her, helping her with the conjuring in silence.

She could feel his eyes on her and Hermione could tell he wanted to say more but was biting his tongue to avoid upsetting her. They worked quietly until the house was fit for four young boys and Hermione asked him to accompany her to Rowle Tower. Harry took her hand, apparating them both to the property and staring up at the massive structure in awe.

"It would be easier for you to just live here, since you have access and all," he said. "You wouldn't need to renovate your cottage if you lived here. There'd be plenty of room for everyone."

Hermione sighed. "I don't want to be seen as a gold-digger," she admitted. "And I don't fancy the idea of people catching on that snogging people gives you access to their stuff."

Harry nodded. "I'm pleased you told me about that, actually. Imagine the types of girls who might've found their way into my vault."

Hermione chuckled. "Oh, yes. Because you have such poor taste in women that you'd date a gold-digger."

Harry shrugged, grinning at her.

"Can I ask you something?" he said quietly as they entered the Tower, crossing the foyer and climbing the stairs to explore the rooms upstairs in search of anything of that might've been Alrik's and anything that would be useful when raising young boys.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, glancing up and meeting Harry's gaze.

He pressed his lips together for a moment before speaking.

"Well, you remember the other day we _were_ talking about the notion of shagging for the sake of handling the sexual stuff since neither of us was dating…?" he began leadingly. "I… well, since you're going to be facing the next fifteen plus years as a single mother and I'm still trying to find a witch who doesn't just want my fame and my money…"

Hermione's eyes widened slightly when she realised that, unlike last time he'd brought it up, this time Harry wasn't joking.

"Wouldn't _you_ have a problem with the idea of me having to snog Rowle, Greyback and Dolohov every month?" Hermione asked him. "I don't want to ruin our friendship by having you resent me for the kids, Harry."

"Well, we wouldn't have to be exclusive," Harry shrugged. "I'm not suggesting that we date – honestly, with how close we are and how much time we spend together, we practically are boyfriend and girlfriend anyway. I mean, I tell you everything. I trust you. I love you. The only thing different about you and I, as opposed to how things were when I was dating Ginny, is that currently, we're not shagging."

"You _want_ to shag me?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Hermione, I'm a guy. Of course I want to shag you. Have you looked in the mirror lately? Every bloke I know wants to shag you. They just don't want to date you because they think you're neurotic and because you're too brilliant."

"Neurotic, eh?" Hermione asked.

"Don't give me that look," Harry grinned. "I've seen you go fully neurotic about things in the past. I just… I mean, you know I'm going to be there every step of the way helping you with those boys, and if we kept count of the number of times you sleep over at Grimmauld and actually crawl in next to me to cuddle, it's probably higher than the number of times you sleep elsewhere. Since you're not dating anyone, and I'm not dating anyone, and we both have needs… maybe we _should_ be shagging."

Hermione nibbled her bottom lip, recalling how desperately she'd been thinking she needed to get laid when she'd been snogging Greyback and Rowle.

"I'm about to adopt four children, Harry," Hermione said quietly. "I don't imagine that having them around will be conducive to wild sex when the itch arises."

"Well, no, but they have to sleep sometime, don't they?" he grinned. "And if they're already going to be looking to me as their stand-in father figure, it only makes sense that they see the two of us as a couple to give them an idea of how a proper family is supposed to work. I mean, they know I'm not their Dad, but they'll still be looking to me regarding how to be a man, right? Same way Teddy does. Maybe it would be a good idea to let them think that we're together in a stable, family unit."

"Are you saying you want to… move in with me?" Hermione frowned at him.

"Why not?" he asked. "Ron's been living Ebony for a while now and you know he's going to pop the question to her soon. Grimmauld is big and empty and kind of creepy. Honestly, every time I'm there it makes me miss Remus and Sirius. Half the time I wander the rooms hoping that they've just wandered off somewhere and I'll find them in the attic or the library. And you're going to need help to wrangle four boys, love."

"You'd… obviously I no longer have a spare room, Harry. If you moved in with me, you'd be sharing my bedroom," Hermione pointed out.

"Well, that'll make it easier to shag you, won't it?" he raised one eyebrow. "And it'll help keep you from turning all those kids into mummy's-boys by letting them all crawl into bed with you every night."

"So we'd be… what, exactly?" Hermione asked, frowning at him.

"Best friends. Lovers. Whatever you want, 'Mione. You know I love you."

"Will you still when I have to go off and snog Rowle, Dolohov and Greyback every month?" she asked.

Harry shrugged. "We don't have to be exclusive. And it's not like I'll be selling Grimmauld Place. I'll come and go and we can shag or cuddle or whatever and I can help you with the kids and watch the young ones while you've got to take the elder kid to primary school and all that. It's going to be hard to balance them alone, love."

"What about the psychological damage it would do when you inevitably find someone who isn't me and move in with her, marry her and have kids with her?" Hermione asked. "I don't want them to think they've got a new Mum and Dad only to have another father figure walk out of their life."

"As though I'd be able to leave them?" Harry asked. "As though I'd ever abandon you? Even if I did find someone else and fall for her, if she had a problem with you or those kids, she wouldn't be the witch for me, would she?"

"Harry… I… this is a lot to consider," Hermione frowned.

"So think about it. Just tell me one thing. Do you _want_ to shag me? Can you see yourself shagging me without being drunk or lonely or miserable? Because if not, it kind of defeats the point of continuing to discuss it."

"I…" Hermione gnawed her lip, looking down at her feet for a moment. She'd never really thought about it. The one time she'd shagged Harry in the past had been good. Hell, she'd been feeling so low at the time that the sex and the endorphin rush had felt incredible. But she'd never really, seriously considered doing it again. He'd been dating Ginny, she'd been dating Ron, and it had just never been suggested seriously until now.

Lifting her gaze back to his, Hermione stepped toward him, closing the distance and reaching to cup his cheek. Stretching up on her toes, Hermione pressed her lips to Harry's, wanting to see if it would _feel_ awkward or strange to kiss him. He blinked in shock before closing his eyes and reaching for her, his hands lifting to lightly grip her waist as he leaned into the kiss.

His lips were chapped from flying, but they were warm and soft and felt good against hers. Hermione sighed against his lips as she opened to him, tasting his tongue carefully and quivering at the little thrill that shot through her. She would swear she could feel Harry's lips twitching toward a grin as he kissed her back and Hermione felt a giggle burble up from within herself in response. Something about kissing him felt silly, but also good.

"Mistress!" a voice suddenly shouted.

Hermione and Harry sprang apart, each of them drawing their wands and aiming them at the source of the sound.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

* * *

Three small house-elves blinked in surprise, putting their hands up in surrender to suddenly find two wands levelled in their direction.

"Goodness!" Hermione exclaimed, lowering her wand immediately. "Sorry about that. I didn't realise there would be elves still here."

"Mistress," one of the elves said, smiling toothily at her. "How can we be of service? Do you have tasks you'd like us to do?"

"Err..." Hermione glanced over at Harry. "I'm not... uh... in charge of you, am I?"

"Of course you is, Mistress. Master be kissing you and now we be yours to command. We has been waiting a long time to have someone command us once more."

Hermione sighed. Just what she needed. House elves who were going to treat her bogus title as Rowle's witch like it was law.

"Oh, dear. I should've known this would happen. Alright then, well, as you're obviously aware, I snogged Rowle and here we are. I'll be taking custody of Alrik from the Ministry too. We're here looking for some of his toys or clothes, you see. He'll be moving in with me at my cottage, along with three other boys and so we need whatever we can find of his things for them all."

"But Mistress... Master Alrik is be living here. He belongs here."

Hermione smiled.

"I know, little one, but I can't be seen living here. It would be very bad for wizards everywhere. Until Thorfinn is released from Azkaban, Alrik will live with me in my cottage. The three of you are, of course, welcome to assist me in raising the four boys, in addition to seeing to your duties here."

"What is you be needing us to be doing, Mistress?" the elf wearing the blue pillow-slip asked.

"Erm... do you mean here, or at my cottage?" Hermione asked. "Here, I'd expect Thorfinn would like you to maintain everything, keeping it all neat and tidy, not letting any pests in, that sort of thing. At the cottage I'll probably need whatever help I can get raising four boys under eight."

"You is having more for us to do?" the elf in a green pillow-slip asked, her eyes lighting up with delight at the very idea. "We be serving Master Alrik and the Mistress? We be cooking and cleaning?"

"I... er, well, I'd like to help with those things, of course. But yes, I suppose so," Hermione smiled tentatively. Harry laughed when all three elves shared high-fives of triumph.

"We be getting all of Master Alrik's toys and clothes for you, Mistress. He be leaving some at Selwyn Hall when Mistress Becky moved him there, but we fetch them."

"Alright," Hermione nodded. "I need to get into Thorfinn's study, too. He gave me the password, but could one of you show me the way."

"Right this way, Mistress. I is being Blicker. These be Zippy and Zest and we be the Rowle family house elves."

"I'm Hermione," she smiled at Blicker - the elf wearing orange - before shaking hands with all three elves while they looked mightily impressed by her show of manners. "This is Harry. He's going to be living with me and the boys at my cottage and helping out with them, too."

"Mr Potter is be needing no introduction, Mistress," Blicker told her, bowing low to Harry. "Mr Potters is being the one who be vanquishing the Nasty Wizard who made our master do such bad things."

Harry smiled at them and shook hands with all three, pretending not to notice the way they all looked awed that he would treat them like equals.

"Nice to meet you," he offered.

"This way, Mistress, Blicker will show you to the study while Zippy and Zest fetch the items. Come."

The elf dashed off up the steps and Hermione glanced at Harry before following.

"So I'm moving in, eh?" he teased quietly from behind her.

"Oh, Gods," Hermione spun back, her eyes wide as she collided with Harry's chest. "I forgot to check. I... well, the idea suits me... does it work for you?"

"Am I attracted to you?" he asked, grinning.

Hermione blushed, nodding.

"Let's just say that you had better be grateful those elves interrupted us," Harry muttered, dropping a kiss to the middle of her forehead. "Otherwise, I think that your arse might've become intimately acquainted with that rug over there."

Hermione pressed her lips together as she blushed, trying not to grin.

"Well, aren't you sure of yourself?" she replied.

"Yep," Harry grinned, popping the 'p'. "Now, come on. Let's get the stuff you're insisting we need from this place before dropping it all off at the house and heading to the Ministry for our kids."

"Wait... does this mean we're... dating?" Hermione said.

"Living together," Harry shrugged. "Adopting four kids together. Sleeping together. Call it dating if you want to, love. If you don't want to, we'll call it being the very best of friends and anyone who asks questions can stuff it."

"You realise that Ron and Ginny are going to be terribly upset when they find out about this, right?" she sighed, letting him sling his arm around her shoulders.

"They'll be fine. Ginny has her boy-toys and Ron's got Ebony and they're both over the two of us. They'll likely be happy for us, all things considered. And anyway, they don't own us, so they can just get over it."

Hermione smiled at him.

"You're not going to... I don't know, complain about the fact that to keep those boys I have to go to Azkaban every month and snog three other men? Violent criminals, no less."

"Of course I'm going to complain," Harry rolled his eyes. "Every month I'll nag you about it and bitch that they should keep their sticky paws off you. And every month, when you come back from snogging the three of them, hot for it, _I'll_ be the one shagging you."

"You..." Hermione blushed crimson.

"What?" Harry teased. "You think that I expected anything different? You've never gone for the idea of shagging me before, love. No matter the number of hints I dropped about it."

"Wait... you were serious all those times? Harry, I thought you were just joking."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm pretty sure my libido might be raging a little more than yours, but yeah, I hate going to the pub to pick up some random bird, and my own hand is kind of lonely, you know? Since you were lonely and bitching about your toys being the only attention you got most weeks, too, I figured... But you never went for it until today. So it's either out of fear of being alone forever, or because those gits got you all hot and bothered. And since you don't fear being alone and tend to prefer solitude, I think I can figure out your motivations, Hermione."

Hermione was sure her cheeks were crimson but Harry just laughed before leaning down and stealing another kiss from her surprised lips. Blicker led them to Rowle's office and pointed when they were right outside of it. Hermione cleared her throat, very carefully pronouncing the password to gain access. For a tense moment she waited for the door to open, the magic of the spell slowly unlocking without causing her harm.

"Master be giving you the password," Blicker grinned. "He never be giving it to Mistress Becky. Master must like you Mistress Hermione."

"Your master is a right sod, Blicker," Hermione told the elf, smiling. "And I'm sure he's only being nice the sake of having someone nice and sane raising his son."

The elf "mmmhhmmmmed" in a very knowing sort of way and Hermione made a face at Harry while he snorted with amusement.

"What are we looking for... Ouch!" Harry exclaimed, trying to cross the threshold and slamming into an invisible force-field, knocking his glasses askew.

"Just because the door is open doesn't mean you has access, Mr Harry Potter," Blicker said, sounding amused - the cheeky thing.

"Maybe you have to say the password or be given special access or something. Its fine, Harry. I'll grab the pensieve and we can go."

"Master be saying Mistress is to have the vault key too, Mistress," Blicker reminded her.

"Rowle gave you his vault key?" Harry asked, surprised.

"He essentially told me that what's his is mine," Hermione sighed. "The git. Anyway, I don't need the vault key; I have plenty of my own money."

She entered the office and fought the urge to sigh in delight. She could understand why he'd warded it. It was a very nice office, full of rare magical items, mahogany bookshelves and a matching desk, in addition to more books than she'd seen anywhere outside of a library or her own house in a long time. The space was lit by one large window that overlooked the grounds and though the hearth was unlit, it had a nice, cosy sort of feel where she could imagine herself whiling away hours and hours on her research. Sitting on of the shelves, Hermione spied the pensieve, before moving over to collect it carefully. There were a number of phials filled with memories lining the shelves of a cabinet next to it and Hermione eyed them curiously, wondering what they might be and what she might learn about Rowle should she view them.

The urge to peek was strong, but she set it aside for the time being. She had four young boys to collect from the Ministry and to bring home. Hurrying back out with the pensieve in hand, Hermione was met with all three elves clutching large bags of toys, books, clothing and more.

"Ready to go?" she asked of them all.

They all nodded and Harry grinned, intending to apparate himself since she had hold of the pensieve with both hands.

"Alright, to my cottage it is, and then we'll go to the Ministry for the boys."

 **~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Harry accompanied her back to the Ministry, where they found Carrie waiting for them.

"Ah," Carrie smiled. "I'd begun to wonder if you'd be coming back. Everything is in order, Hermione. The papers are all taken care of. I just need you to sign here, and we can release all four boys to your custody."

Hermione nodded, reaching for the quill and quickly reading the contract she'd been handed before signing her name, agreeing to care for the boys as her own until such time that their fathers were granted custody once more, or until they were of age, whichever came first.

"Excellent. They're ready to go. Mr Potter, I assume you're here to help Hermione take them all home?"

"Yep," Harry nodded.

"Well, you won't be able to apparate. Not while they're so young. The best and safest option is Floo Travel. You don't want to risk splinching them and their will isn't strong enough to apparate without splinching when they're just little boys. You can, of course, take them with you in the Floo, so that's fine."

Hermione nodded in understanding, following Carrie back down the hall to where the boys had been kept. When Carrie opened it to let them inside, all four boys were packed and ready to go. Hermione's heart clenched as she entered the room to find all four boys sitting on one of the beds, looking hopefully toward the door.

"Now, they're not allowed to take the toys from here; the Ministry keeps those for any other children who might be brought into our care, but the clothes they're wearing are fine to be taken home."

"The rags they're wearing, you mean?" Harry said dryly, his eyes scanning all four boys critically.

His green eyes behind his spectacles scanned the four of them and Hermione could tell he was searching for the signs he would know to look for regarding abuse. After all, he'd grown up in a situation that was much worse than what these boys had endured so far.

"Unfortunately, Mr Potter, the Ministry relies on the charity of the community to handle situations like this and as such there isn't room in the budget to be buying brand new clothing for orphans no one wants," Carrie said sadly, frowning at the boys as well. "Lucian having been here so long, and growing so rapidly, meant that many of the clothing articles we had in supple were given to him and worn until they fell apart."

"Right," Harry said. "Well, in future, I'd like someone from this department to owl me regarding all orphans of the magical world, alright? Not just the kids of Death Eaters, either. Actually, I'll speak to Kingsley. It's high time we set up a more effective solution to dealing with orphaned magical children. We don't need a repeat of Tom's life, and I'll fund it myself if I have to."

Carrie looked surprised and then perhaps pleased, but Hermione was focusing too closely on the boys to pay the other witch much mind.

"You came back," Lucian said quietly, getting off the bed and moving toward her cautiously, looking very much like a skittish animal. He bared his teeth at Carrie again, though she stayed over by the door, and he eyed Harry suspiciously.

"I promised that I would, Lucian," Hermione smiled gently at the boy. "Are you all ready to come home with me?"

"We is clean," Dmitri told her. "Did you see my Daddy?"

Hermione smiled at the boy, stooping slightly so she was on eye level with them all and smoothing a hand over Alrik's hair when he reached to tangle one of his little fists into her curls.

"I did," Hermione said. "You Daddies all asked me to pass some things along for you, but let's share them at home, alright? We'll get you out of here and then we can talk all about how happy your Daddies were that I'd be looking after you from now on."

"You saw my Dad?" Lucian asked, surprising Hermine when he reached for the arm he'd bitten earlier, lifting it to his nose and inhaling the scent of the bandage.

He closed his eyes on a soft whimper as he breathed in the scent on the fabric. As part of Fenrir's clothing in the prison, it undoubtedly smelled like him.

"Smells like Dad," he whispered. "Smells like home. You… why does it smell like blood? I sealed the bite I gave you."

Hermione smiled at the young boy when he opened his eyes, their light grey colour shot through with amber.

"Fenrir gave me a little love-bite, too," Hermione told him. "I'll show it to you at home, if you like."

"We're… we're really getting out of here?" he asked, his voice almost scared.

"We really are. I know that each of you have a mother you might recall fondly," Hermione told them, scooping up Ranulf and propping him on her hip as she stood straight once more. "But from now on, I'm going to be your mother, alright. You don't have to call me 'Mum' if you're not comfortable with it, but you can if you'd like to."

"I…" Dmitri frowned at her as he slipped off the edge of the bed to stand beside Lucian. "My Mum is dead."

Hermione smiled sadly. "I know, love."

"You aren't my Mummy," he went on, still frowning. "But… you saw my Daddy?"

"I did, indeed."

Dmitri frowned before taking Lucian's hand and glancing up at him for a moment. The older boy was eyeing her warily, obviously unsure about the idea of calling her 'Mum' too.

"Well… if you're taking me home and my Daddy doesn't mind," Dmitri said. "Then I call you Mummy."

Hermione's heart clenched inside her chest.

"I'd like that very much," she told the little dark-haired Russian boy, smiling widely. Dmitri smiled back.

"Who's he?" Lucian asked, eyeing Harry, who'd remained over by the door.

"This is Harry Potter," Hermione told them. "He's my best friend and he's going to help me take all of you to my house. He's going to be spending a good deal of time there with us, too."

"He's your boyfriend?" Lucian asked.

Hermione glanced at Harry for a moment.

"I suppose you could say that," she said carefully.

She jumped a little when Lucian darted closer, sniffing her face inquisitively.

"Does he mind that you've been kissing people who aren't him?" Lucian asked.

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"You can smell who've I've been kissing?" she asked.

Lucian nodded, eyeing her thoughtfully. "You smell like my Dad. And a bit like Alrik – but different. And you smell like him," he pointed to Harry.

"Well, yes, I suppose it's safe to say that I had to kiss each of your father's goodbye before leaving," Hermione said, thinking on her feet, trying to find a way to explain all this without confusing them all.

"And Harry doesn't mind?" Lucian asked. "I'd mind, if you were my girlfriend. Dad always minded if anyone even sniffed in Mum's direction."

"Yes, well, you father is a bit territorial, isn't he?" Hermione said. "Harry and I are the very best of friends and he knows that when I kiss your fathers goodbye, it's for a purpose."

"Oh," said Lucian. "So… he's not going to challenge them to a fight the next time he sees them?"

"I don't think so," Hermione smiled. "Harry's not a very violent person."

"Funny, Dad told me that Harry Potter is the one who killed the Dark Lord," Lucian replied. "He killed the Dark Lord and got the rest of the world hunting our Daddies down."

Hermione sighed.

"Why don't we talk about this at home, Lucian? I'll be able to explain it better at home."

"Did Harry put my Daddy in prison?" Dmitri asked.

"No, sweetheart. Your father's were all put in prison because they broke the law."

"What's law?" Alrik asked, still fiddling with her curls.

"The rules, love," Hermione told the little boy. "There are rules in society and in life, that we all have to follow. And if we break the rules, there are penalties. If the rules say not to break your toys, and you break them, you might not get to play with them anymore. Does that make sense?"

"Did Daddy break toys?" Alrik frowned.

"No, darling," Hermione said. "Your Daddies all broke the laws that adults in wizarding society must follow. They broke the law and they did some very bad things. They were put in jail because they weren't to be trusted in mainstream society until they learn their lesson. Do you understand?"

"Dad told me that the Pack lives outside the laws of the wizarding world," Lucian muttered.

"Yes, well, that's why he's going to spend his life in Azkaban, isn't it?" Hermione replied, getting frustrated with all their questions.

"He won't be there forever," Lucian said knowingly, reaching for her arm and sniffing at her bandage again. "He promised me he'd see me again soon."

Hermione realised she was going to have to be careful with the four of them. It was a very fine line to walk between allowing them to understand that their fathers were criminals who'd broken the law and must pay for their crimes; and between letting them have an affection for their sires and know that though they were bad people, they still loved them. Lucian, as the oldest, and with the most criminal of fathers for his role model, would have to be spoken to shortly, she supposed. The others were a bit too young to grasp the idea of laws and prison sentences and why they're fathers were bad men who'd done bad things, even if they still loved them.

"I'm sure he will, Lucian," Hermione said softly. "Let's talk about it at home, alright? Are you ready to go?"

Lucian shrugged, still sniffing her arm. Ranulf gurgled on her hip, having burrowed his face into her neck where he seemed to be drooling on her. Hermione smiled at the baby.

"Are you all ready to meet Harry? We'll be travelling by Floo to get to my house, so he's going to help us, alright?"

"Harry. Harry. Harry," said Alrik, waving in Harry's direction.

Harry grinned and waved back. Hermione beckoned him closer.

"Harry, I'd like you to meet Lucian and Ranulf Greyback," she said, indicating to each boy in turn. "And this is Dmitri Dolohov, and that's Alrik's Rowle."

"Hello," Harry said, offering his hand to Alrik, who reached for it and shook it smartly. Dmitri followed suit after giving him a suspicious stare.

Lucian eyed the hand Harry offered to him like he might bite him. Hermione watched with her heart in her throat as the lycan boy slowly released her bandaged forearm and reached for Harry's hand instead. He shook it carefully before pulling it closer and sniffing it. If Harry was surprised he didn't show it.

"You smell like her," Lucian told Harry, pointing to Hermione. "And like broom polish."

"I was polishing my broom earlier, yeah," Harry nodded. "It got a bit banged up at training."

"Training?" Lucian asked.

"Quidditch training," Harry smiled. "You boys know what Quidditch is, right?"

"Quidditch!" Alrik's blue eyes widened and his whole expression lit up before he reached little hands up toward Harry, making grabby-hands like he wanted to be picked up.

Harry grinned, stooping to lift the boy and propping the toddler upon his hip.

"You like Quidditch, huh?"

"Rowle used to play before…" Hermione reminded him.

"That's right. Ballycastle Bats, wasn't it?" Hermione nodded. "Well, no wonder the kid's into Quidditch," Harry said.

"Let's go home," Hermione said, smiling and taking Lucian's hand while Dmitri began trying to climb Harry, wanting to sit on his other hip to talk about Quidditch.

"Hermione?" Lucian asked as Harry scooped Dmitri up and carried both boys toward the door.

"Yes, Lucian?" Hermione asked, looking down at the young boy where he was walking carefully beside her.

"Is… will Harry live with us, too?"

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "Will that be alright with you?"

Lucian frowned. "Is he… he smells like another kid, too? Does… does he have a son?"

"No, love," Hermione smiled gently at the boy. "Harry has a godson – that means he's the mentor and fun 'uncle' type of person for a boy named Teddy Lupin. He's four."

"Lupin?" Lucian asked, his eyebrows lifting. "I know that name. Dad used to say that Lupin needed to fall into line."

"Yes, Remus Lupin was a werewolf. He was bitten by Fenrir when he was just a little boy himself," Hermione explained. "He was killed during the war and now his son, Teddy, is being raised by his grandmother, Andromeda. Harry often looks after him, so I'm sure you'll meet him."

"Is he… like me?" Lucian asked, looking guardedly hopeful.

"No, love," Hermione shook her head. "He's like Ranulf. His Daddy was a werewolf, but his mother wasn't a werewolf or his father's wolfmate, so his eyes might flash every now and then, but he doesn't transform like you do at the full moon."

"Oh."

Hermione smiled at him. "Are you alright? Does it bother you that no one is like you?"

Lucian frowned. "The others used to transform with Dad… but not like I did. They turned to wolf the whole way. I don't."

Hermione nodded her understanding.

"Dad said I was special," Lucian said quietly, sniffing occasionally at the bandage on her arm as they walked out of the room and toward the nearest fireplace where they might Floo home. "He said that what I can do is very rare, and that it made the Pack stronger.

"You _are_ special, sweetheart," Hermione promised the young boy.

Lucian smiled quickly before hiding his expression once more. When they reached the Floo, Harry climbed inside, still holding Alrik and Dmitri. Hermione picked up some Floo powder and dropped it for him as he called out that he wanted to go to her cottage. Lucian watched curiously as though he was unused to Floo travel and Hermione supposed that having been cooped up in that little room for so long meant he wasn't used to a good many things.

"Wrap your arms around me, sweetheart. We'll go together," Hermione told the young boy, Ranulf gripped tightly in her arms. Lucian did as he was told after a moment's hesitation, burying his nose against her stomach and hiding his face while she dropped the powder, whooshing the three of them off to her cottage after Harry and stepping out when they arrived, ready to start her new life.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: It's been so long and I'm so sorry about the wait. The Muse burrowed away and didn't want to play with me, the sulky thing! But I'd forgotten how fun it is to write this story, so I'm hoping the muse will stick around and more chapters will be forthcoming. Thank you all so much for your patience.**

 **xx-Kitten.**

* * *

 **Devils' Angels**

 _By Kittenshift17_

* * *

 **Chapter Seven**

* * *

Motherhood, Hermione immediately discovered, involved dealing with lots of tantrums and tears over things that made absolutely no sense. Upon arrival into her cottage Hermione was greeted by a worried looking Harry who was attempting to console two sobbing toddlers. Before she could even move toward them to offer comfort, Ranulf began to wail upon her hip and she realised that all three little boys were reacting to the disorienting and uncomfortable vertigo associated with Floo travel – Ranulf perhaps for the very first time.

"Oh, Merlin," Hermione sighed. "Lucian, sweetheart? Do you think you could give us a hand to calm the boys down? They don't seem too fond of Floo travel."

Lucian nodded, reaching for Ranulf from her hip and expertly manoeuvring the boy onto his hip before unceremoniously moving Ranulf's small hand into his mouth, silencing the boy's cries.

"How did you do that?" Harry asked, looking slightly amused when Ranulf immediately quieted his sobs, sucking his thumb instead while Lucian jiggled about a bit, dancing and murmuring something too low for Hermione to hear.

Hermione realised with a jolt that he was probably very used to quieting unhappy toddlers and though she didn't want to encourage the idea of the boys sucking their thumbs, she hurried over to Harry, taking Alrik from him and popping the boy's thumb into his own mouth. Just like Ranulf had done, Alrik quieted and when Harry did the same thing with Dmitri, he stopped wailing, too. They all still looked confused and unhappy, but they stopped screaming and Hermione marvelled, wondering how Lucian had taught them to quiet so quickly.

"You have to scare them," Lucian told her quietly, catching her questioning gaze. "They learned pretty quickly that if I put their thumbs in their mouths and they kept throwing a tantrum, I'd growl at them or nip them. They won't keep crying if they know it will get them into trouble."

Hermione frowned.

It might be effective, but she didn't want to encourage negative reinforcement. She'd been spanked as a child when she'd done something wrong and while it had been effective to keep her in line, it had also left her with a rather unhealthy dislike for wooden-spoons. She especially didn't like the idea that up until now, the only kind of authority figure the toddlers would recall was Lucian, and she didn't fancy having them fear him because of what he was.

"Right, well, in future let's try to avoid scaring them or hurting them unless they've hurt you first, alright sweetheart. I'm grateful that you've found a way to quiet them, and I know it's going to be a learning curve for all of us to get used to things as a family, but I don't want you to feel so responsible for them. You're just boy yourself, Lucian."

Lucian didn't respond, he just cocked his head to one side and stared at her, still jiggling the baby perched upon his hip and looking entirely too adorable for words. Hermione smiled at him gently.

"Well, come on," she said. "I'll show you all to your rooms."

She beckoned him, still carrying Alrik while Harry carried Dmitri and Lucian carried his baby brother. The whole lot of them trooped up the stairs, and Hermione led them into the room she planned to have Lucian and Ranulf share.

"This one will be your room, Lucian. I didn't think you'd like being separated from Ranulf, so if it's alright with you, the two of you will be sharing this one," Hermione explained to the small boy.

Lucian's eyes trailed over the room carefully and he looked almost fearful, like he didn't know what to make of the whole thing and a little like he was afraid. She supposed that after being cooped up for so long in that room at the Ministry, he probably was rather afraid of the outside world.

"What about the others?" he asked. "There's not enough beds."

"Well, that's because they'll have their own room down the hall here, see?" Hermione smiled encouragingly, leading them down the hall and into the bedroom she planned to house Alrik in. "This one will be your room, Alrik."

"Me?" Alrik asked, his eyes lighting up at being addressed when Hermione looked at him. His eyes were still wet from crying, and Hermione wiped them carefully even as she smiled.

"You," she nodded. "This is where you'll sleep. Won't that be nice?"

Alrik squirmed to be let down and toddled into the room, looking around.

"My toys," he smiled, picking up a stuffed dragon toy and cuddling it into his arms.

"Yes, we collected them from the Tower after I visited your Daddy and he told me where they were. Isn't that fun?" Hermione smiled.

Alrik grinned before picking up another dragon and crossing the room to Harry. He held out the dragon to Dmitri, who leaned down in Harry's arms to accept it.

"Thank you," Dmitri said politely, frowning at the toy.

Alrik repeated the process when he collected a toy wolf from the bed and carried it over to Lucian, who looked wary but accepted it just the same.

"Thanks," Lucian said.

Ranulf gurgled on his hip and Hermione reached for the baby so that Lucian could hold his new toy better.

"For Pup," Alrik said, tugging on the leg of Hermione's jeans when he'd fetched a fourth toy.

He held the small bear up toward her, and Hermione wondered how it could be that, just like his father, the boy was clearly generous and not afraid to share what he had.

Ranulf yipped like a puppy when Hermione handed him the toy and she smiled a little.

"Can you say thank you, Ranulf?" Hemione asked. "Thank you."

Ranulf furrowed his little brow at her.

"Fank oo," he said, surprising her.

"You can talk," she exclaimed, surprised.

"I taught him," Lucian said quietly, clutching the stuffed wolf he'd been given.

"Oh, Lucian," Hermione said, her heart clenching. "You darling boy."

He looked like he didn't know what darling meant, but his mouth pulled up at one corner.

"Do I get a room, too?" Dmitri asked quietly.

"Of course you do, sweetheart," Hermione smiled at the little boy, turning to him where he still sat on Harry's hip.

She glanced at Harry, noting the way he held the boy and was eyeing him curiously, almost as though he couldn't believe such a polite little boy could be the spawn on Antonin Dolohov.

"It's just down the hall here, see?" Hermione led them down the hall and into the final bedroom. "This is where you'll sleep Dmitri. What do you think?"

"It's nice," Dmitri said, squirming to be put down before he looked around the room curiously, toddling over and putting his dragon on the freshly made bed.

He climbed up and sat next to the toy before looking at Lucian and Alrik expectantly. Hermione didn't know what to make of it when both boys moved over and climbed up next to Dmitri, all of them perching on the edge of the small single bed. She looked over at Harry, who was grinning and had propped his shoulder against the doorframe. Hermione suspected he was having entirely too much fun watching her try to figure out what to do with four children.

"You guys hungry?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"There's food?" Lucian asked, his nose twitching as he began sniffing hungrily.

"Course there is. Why don't I go down and start cooking us all some pancakes while your new Mum shows you where she'll be sleeping and where the loo is, eh?" Harry grinned, winking at Hermione when she met his gaze.

She'd almost forgotten that while she had limited experience with children, he was used to them because he spent so much time helping Andromeda with Teddy.

"Mumumumumum," Ranulf chattered happily on her hip and Hermione looked into the baby's little face, smiling as her heart clenched inside her chest.

"That's right, Ranulf," Hermione nodded. "I'm your Mum now."

"Mumumumum," he said again, giving her a gappy smile.

"Where's your room?" Lucian asked.

"It's this one down the hall. Would you like to see?" she asked, beckoning the three boys on the bed.

They all slid off the bed obediently and followed her down to the end of the hall, where her bedroom was.

"This is where I sleep," she said.

"Doesn't smell like Harry," Lucian said, strolling into the room and sniffing around curiously. "Does he sleep here too?"

"He will do," Hermione nodded. "He's moving in today, too. But he's slept over a fair few times."

Lucian glanced up at her, nodding slowly and Hermione wondered how much of the world he'd really seen. Did he understand the complications of relationships when people weren't technically a couple, but were close and would be getting closer?

"Can I sleep here, too?" Alrik asked, toddling over to the bed and climbing up on it.

"Sometimes," Hermione nodded, following him over and climbing onto the bed too, setting Ranulf down by the pillows and patting the space to invite Lucian and Dmitri up, too. "When you're scared, or you're not feeling good, you can all climb in a cuddle with me, if you need to."

"Me too?" Dmitri asked.

"Of course, Dmitri. I'm going to be your mother, now. Mums love cuddles, you know?" Hermione said, smoothing a hand through his dark hair affectionately and noting that when he looked suspicious, it was very obvious he was Antonin Dolohov's son. They had the same eyes, and the same shape to their faces.

"Will you tell us what our Dads said when you saw them, now?" Lucian asked quietly, perching on the edge of the bed beside where she'd sat down and picking up her arm so that he could hold her bandage to his nose again.

Hermione nodded, smiling when Alrik crawled across the bed and plonked himself down in her lap again.

"Of course, I will. I went to see Fenrir first," she said smoothing a careful hand through Lucian's hair while the boy tensed and looked unsure what she planned before he relaxed slowly when she scratched her fingers through his hair gently. "He was a bit surprised to see me, since we hadn't crossed paths in a long time. I told him that I was going to be looking after all of your from now on and he was a bit unsure at first, because we didn't used to be friends when he was free. But when I told him about how horrible the Ministry had been to all of you he got very angry, and even though they had him chained up, he broke his chains when he lost his temper."

"He's in chains?" Lucian growled, his eyes narrowed hatefully.

"Yes, darling," Hermione nodded. "The guards at the prison didn't know if he would be nice to me or not, so they chained him up for my visit to make sure he wouldn't hurt me."

"But he did," Lucian said, touching her bite, having unravelled the bandage Fenrir had wrapped around her arm.

"He bit me, yes," Hermione nodded. "But when I told him I was going to take care of you from now on, he stopped being quite so angry."

"He's always angry," Lucian said quietly. "He's been angry since my Mum died."

Hemione smiled sadly.

"He asked me to tell you that he loves you and Ranulf very much, Lucian," she told the little boy.

Lucian's eyes filled with tears and he looked away, fisting the scrap of fabric from her bandage as the tears overflowed his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. Hermione reached for him, jostling Alrik in her lap and pulling the skittish lycan boy into her embrace. Ranulf crawled closer, burrowing into his brother's arms, and Hermione's heart squeezed while tears overflowed her own eyes when Dmitri and Alrik cuddled Lucian and Ranulf, too, all of them piling onto her lap and holding each other tight.

"He'll be free before you know it, sweetheart," Hermione whispered in Lucian's ear. "Not too much longer now, he said. We'll know when he comes."

A low whimper tore from the boy and he pressed his face into her neck as he sobbed softly. Hermione knew he'd been starved for attention and affection for so long that he was overwhelmed, and she doubted anyone had bothered to remind him before today that his Daddy still loved him and that he would come for him.

"Do you know what Wolfsbane is, Lucian?" she asked the boy in a tight whisper.

Lucian hiccupped, but Hermione felt him nod.

"The guards at Azkaban have been putting it in his food and his water. That's why he hasn't already come for you, love. But he will. He assured me, he will."

"Soon?" Lucian asked.

"He said it might be more than a year. It takes more than overcoming the Wolfsbane to get him free, darling."

Lucian nodded, clutching her tightly.

"When he comes, will you stay?" he asked very softly.

"Stay here? Or stay with you?" she asked. "I expect that when he comes, the first place the authorities will look will be here, sweetheart. And I'll be in some trouble if you and Ranulf go away when Fenrir comes. He'll be in some trouble, too."

"He won't take us away," Lucian shook his head, pulling back from her and reaching for her bitten arm again. "He bit you. Your ours, now."

Hermione frowned, looking down at the bite.

"What do you mean, love?" she asked, confused.

"He's the alpha," Lucian said. "And he gave you the bite."

"Yes, but it wasn't a full moon, darling. I'm not a werewolf."

"No, but he made you Pack," Lucian whispered. "You're part of the pack. He'll come for you when he's free. And he'll ask you to run with us."

"I can't run with the pack, Lucian. And you're too young to run with them, too. You need to go to school. Ranulf, too."

"Dad doesn't think much of school and wizarding society's ideas of how we should live."

"Your Dad will just have to get used to it," Hermione said sternly.

Lucian smirked.

"Tell him that," he said. "I dare you."

"I already did. He told me I'm not allowed to turn you and your brother into wimpy little pansies. And I told him you will both grow up to be upstanding citizens who uphold the law and don't follow in his footsteps of being a criminal."

"What did he say?" Lucian asked, smiling widely.

"He growled at me and threatened to rip my throat out."

"Were you scared?" Lucian asked, though he chuckled like the threat was funny and Hermione wondered how damaged the little boy was already after the years he'd spent being raised by Fenrir before he'd been locked away. She wondered how much damage he'd do when he was free.

"I'm not afraid for the Big Bad Wolf," Hermione shook her head.

Lucian laughed again. "You should be. He's mean."

"I know," Hermione sighed. "But we'll figure out what happens when he's free, alright? Until then, he wants you to stay with me so that I can keep you safe. Okay?"

Lucian nodded.

"What about my Papa?" Dmitri asked, pulling on one of Hermione's curls. "What did my Papa say?"

"He asked me to pass along a message for you, darling. It's in Russian, though. Will you know what it means?"

" _Da,_ " Dmitri nodded, smiling widely.

"Alright, good. I'm sorry if I don't pronounce it right. We'll have to learn how to speak the rest of the language together, won't we? So that we understand your Daddy's messages."

"Yay!" Dmitri cheered, clapping his hands together, and looking at her imploringly, waiting for the message.

"Alright, Antonin asked me to tell you: _Privet, synotchik. Ya lyublyu tebya. Skoro uvidimsya._ Do you know what it means, darling?"

Dmitri nodded, smiling widely.

"He says hello, son. I love you. See you soon," Dmitri translated.

Hermione smiled.

"Was he nice to you, Mum?" Dmitri asked, surprising her with the endearment.

"Not as nice as he could have been," Hermione sighed, telling the boy the truth. "He's a bit put out about being locked away, you know?"

Dmitri nodded.

"And _your_ Daddy, Alrik, said many things that made me laugh, and informed me just how cute you are, in case I hadn't noticed, and said he loves you more than anything else in the whole wide world," Hermione told Alrik while he played with her curls, smiling a happy little smile. She suspected he was a bit too young to really understand anything other than that his father loved him, but that was ok.

"We stay here now?" Alrik asked.

"Yes, sweetheart. We'll all stay here, now. We'll eat and play and sleep and we'll start getting all of your ready to go to school, won't that be fun? We'll read, and I've got a telly for the days when reading is too hard, and there's a lake nearby for swimming when it warms up, won't that be fun?"

"Is there food now?" Lucian asked. "Can we eat now?"

"Are you hungry, love?" Hermione asked him, letting him pull out of her arms and watching him wipe his eyes on his sleeve.

"I'm always _hungry_ ," he whispered, looking away and from the pained expression he wore, Hermione suspected he meant it in memory of his time in the Ministry's care.

"Well, you'll never go hungry here, darling," Hermione promised. "Let's go downstairs and see what Harry's up to, yeah? He'll have those pancakes cooking away nicely, I'm sure."

The boys all scuttled off the bed in a flurry of movement and Hermione laughed when the three who could, dashed out the door and down the steps, clearly relaxing into their new surroundings with ease.

Following after them, Hermione reached the kitchen in time to watch Alrik barrel right into Harry's legs, almost knocking him over and she laughed when he had to catch himself on the bench.

"Oi, watch it there, Alrik," Harry laughed. "Little bulldozers, the lot of you! Now, who's hungry?"

"I am!" Dmitri shouted, pulling himself up onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar, intent on getting to the food.

"Hermione, love? Maybe a hand?" Harry laughed when Alrik tried to climb up too and almost toppled the stool.

"Coming. Lucian, sweetheart, let's put Ranulf in this chair, alright? That way he won't fall, and you won't have to hold him while we eat."

Lucian looked uncertain but relinquished the baby to her when she reached for him. Hermione tucked him into the high-chair she'd drawn up, and she reached for one of the pancakes Harry had cooked up, setting it on the food-tray of the high chair and cutting it into pieces. Before she could even finish doing so, the baby scooped up one of the pieces, popped it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed it before giving her a big, gap toothed grin.

"Tasty, Ranulf?" Hermione asked, smiling at the baby.

Ranulf nodded his head, scooping up more pieces of the pancake.

"Oh, Lucian, sweetheart, maybe a knife and fork?" she suggested, looking over to see Lucian had double-fisted a triple stack of syrup smothered pancakes and was attempting to eat them like they were a burger.

Harry laughed when he saw the two smaller boys copying Lucian, clearly used to taking their cues from him, and he flipped a freshly cooked pancake to Hermione to cut up for Ranulf, before setting aside the frypan to help Lucian when he looked lost.

"Like this, buddy," Harry said, pulling out enough cutlery for all of them and handing a knife and fork to each boy.

Hermione watched, still cutting pancake bits for Ranulf, as Harry showed the other three children how to hold a knife and fork, showing them how to spear the pancake with their fork before cutting it with the knife. Lucian seemed to remember doing so in the past and got the hang of it very quickly, but Alrik and Dmitri – both having been entirely too young when they'd gone into the system – struggled for a while longer with Harry helping them.

"Too hard," Alrik complained, tossing down the utensils and using his hands. Hermione had to stifle a laugh when Harry was splattered with syrup, especially when Alrik proceeded to roll up his pancake into a cylinder like it was a cigar before taking a bite out of the end and chewing ravenously.

"I think we're all going to need a bath after this," Harry laughed in return when Ranulf, apparently hungry for more, chomped Hermione's hand with his syrup covered mouth.

"Ouch!" she hissed, withdrawing the appendage reproachfully. "Raanulf! That wasn't nice."

Hermione blinked when Ranulf growled at her, clearly still hungry and not afraid to challenge her for more.

"You'll get a smack if you keep that up, Mister!" Hermione chided him, booping him gently on the nose with the tip of her finger. "If you want more, you say please."

Ranulf bared his teeth again, but he froze when Hermione bared her own in retort.

"Pwease?" he asked, fixing her a set of great big puppy dog eyes instead.

"Oooh, you're so in over your head, love," Harry chuckled, coming up behind her and bringing another pancake with him.

"Tell me about it," she muttered. "You have syrup of your face."

Harry grinned.

"Get it for me?" he asked.

She did, and she didn't know which one of them was more surprised when she did so by licking his cheek.

"Is that a promise of giving me a more thorough tongue bath later?" he whispered in her ear before fixing her a cheeky grin.

"What if it is?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Then I say let's get these kids fed and washed and down for a nap, yeah?" Harry smirked, bouncing his eyebrows suggestively.

Hermione couldn't help but laugh before having to reach over and catch Alrik's little hand when the boy drew back in preparation to lob a hunk of masticated pancake at Dmitri. She was beginning to think that this motherhood business wasn't going to be nearly as easy as she'd hoped it would be, but also that she was going to love every minute of it.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: *creeps into the room while you're not yet fully away***

 ***replaces your morning paper with a fun new chapter***

 ***tops up your morning coffee***

 ***scuttles away before the yelling can start***

 **xx-Kitten**

* * *

 **Devils' Angels**

 _By Kittenshift17_

* * *

 **Chapter Eight**

* * *

By the time they got all four boys settled into their new beds, tucked in and kissed goodnight it was close enough to the time that Hermione intended to enforce as bedtime for such young boys anyway that she sighed as she leaned against the doorframe of Alrik's room, looking in on the little boy as he dozed off, his arm wrapped snugly around his toy dragon and his thumb lodged squarely in his mouth.

She knew she should do what she could to prevent thumb-sucking, but she'd allow it for the first little while. At least until they all got used to having their own rooms, and to living with her. If sucking their thumbs – something she'd spotted Dmitri and Ranulf both doing, too – helped them to feel safe, she would allow it for now. She leaned out into the hallway when she heard the soft footfalls of Harry as he backed out of Dmitri's room.

He was grinning when he looked over at her, and Hermione realised with a soft smile that when the time came for Harry to begin thinking about having children of his own, he was going to be a wonderful father. He seemed to know just what to do with the four boys she'd adopted, and he always knew what to do with Teddy. He just had a knack for it, and given his own upbringing, Hermione was more than a little surprised. Then again, she supposed that all he really had to do was the exact opposite of what the Dursleys would have done, and he couldn't go wrong.

"You're so good with them," Hermione complimented him, letting him take her hand and begin tugging her down the hall.

"Thanks," Harry said. "I reckon they just need to remember how to be little boys who have people in their lives who are here and who care about them, you know? Growing up, I'd have given anything for that."

Hermione's heart clenched inside her chest at his words.

"I wish I could've made it better for you, Harry," Hermione told him.

Harry shrugged his shoulders and gaze her a crooked smile. "It's alright. I'm over it. I wish it'd been different, but I mean, I'm here, and I reckon I didn't turn out so bad."

"Not so bad at all," Hermione agreed, nodding.

Harry grinned as he tugged her by the hand toward the bathroom.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked, unable to keep from smiling.

"Well, I haven't actually washed up since practice," he admitted. "What with rushing right over here as soon as it finished so that I could help you. And I know you got all covered in syrup, and then in the demonic substance that came out of Ranulf's diaper, so I'm thinking you could use a bath, too. And then I thought, well, if we both need a bath, and if you're going to be using more water bathing these little bulldozers from here on out, it'd only be economically minded to _share_ the shower, you know?"

Hermione giggled, unable to help it when Harry was just so adorably dorky when he tried to flirt.

"You know I love you, right?" Hermione said, giggling as she let Harry pull her into the bathroom while he backed toward the shower.

"Course you do," Harry chuckled. "How could you not? I'm amazing."

"And so modest, too," she teased.

Harry smirked before very deliberately reaching for the hem of her shirt and pulling it upward until the garment came off over her head. Reaching for the front of his Quidditch jersey, Hermione pulled him within range before leaning in and pressing her lips to his hungrily. Harry kissed her back enthusiastically, his hands sliding around her waist and pressing her to his chest snugly.

She could lose herself so easily in his kisses, she realised, and she found herself reaching for the hem of his shirt, pulling it off over his head and letting her hands wander over the tight muscles of his stomach and his chest. Harry nipped her lower lip before suckling it into his mouth while he deftly unsnapped the clasp of her bra. She was only too happy to let it slide down her arms and Hermione found herself reaching for his waistband eagerly, her body thrumming with desire as he kissed her so maddeningly. The sparkles of desire she'd felt with the Death Eaters she'd had to kiss to adopt the four little boys they'd just tucked into bed came rushing back, tenfold, and Harry huffed out a surprised breath when she pushed him up against the bathroom sink, pressing herself against him needily.

She could swear she felt his lips pulling into a smile as he broke their kiss to trail the tip of his tongue along her lower lip before kissing along the length of her jaw and nuzzling into her neck. His hands smoothed up her back and around, sliding up to cup her breasts and Hermione moaned softly at the contact, the tight peaks pebbling under the attention.

"So responsive," Harry teased when she tipped her head, better allowing him to kiss and nip at her neck.

She responded by flicking his pants off his hips, rather enjoying the way the skidded down his legs, leaving him naked before her. He chuckled huskily against her skin, his fingers pinching her stiffened nipples eagerly even as he ground his erection against her stomach, just begging for attention.

"How long has it been for you?" Hermione whispered, tracing her fingers over the ridges of his taut abs, heading south.

"Mmmm, couple of months, I think," Harry groaned, his hands leaving her breasts to peel her out of her jeans until they were both stark naked with their pants around their ankles. "You?"

"Almost a year," Hermione admitted quietly.

"Want me to be gentle?" Harry asked, his hands sliding down and around to grip her arse fiercely, the tight grip almost surprising her.

She'd forgotten how intense he could be, and Hermione hummed recalling the last time she'd slept with him. He'd been rough and unrestrained, letting his every feeling flow into his actions as he ravaged her, and Hermione closed her eyes leaning into his touch eagerly.

"No," she admitted. "Gentle is so boring."

Harry laughed huskily, nipping her neck hard enough to sting before reclaiming her lips. He walked her backward into the shower without breaking the kiss and Hermione squeaked when he turned on the taps, heat scalding down her back.

"Sorry. Sorry," Harry chanted, pulling back and blinking at her.

Hermione laughed when she realised he still had his glasses on. Reaching for them, Hermione pulled them off his face and tossed them the short distance to the bathroom bench. While Harry tried to fix the taps.

"Sorry," he said again. "I'm not smooth or suave."

"Funnily enough, I knew that, Harry," Hermione teased.

"And I can't see you without my glasses," Harry complained.

Hermione chuckled softly. "Probably for the best. I'd hate to blind what little of your sight remains."

"More like you don't want risk turning me off all other women when I spot you in all your perfection," Harry corrected sweetly.

Hermione's heart squeezed as she smiled delightedly at the praise.

Burrowing into his arms, Hermione nuzzled her nose against his neck, breathing in his scent and taking comfort in him. He chuckled, curling his arms around her shoulders and pulling her in closer, the full length of his naked body pressed to hers under the flow of the shower. It felt nice, Hermione thought, closing her eyes and simply enjoying the feel of so much warm flesh against her own. Despite not having been naked with a man in almost a year, it felt so comfortable and so natural being in Harry's company that, no matter her self-deprecation, she felt entirely at ease and at home whilst naked in his embrace.

Harry hummed appreciatively when she traced her hands over his back, enjoying the feel of coiled muscles shifting restlessly under her fingers. He held her for a time before curling one hand around her jaw, leaning back far enough to tip her head up. Hermione smiled against his lips when he kissed her hungrily all over again, his tongue sweeping into her mouth surely and making her crazy with how badly she suddenly wanted him inside of her.

She huffed when he shoved her up against the wall of the shower roughly and Hermione groaned as he curled her leg up over his hip and traced a hand down the length of her body to slide between her legs. He didn't hesitate or ask permission, sure of his welcome as he trailed the pads of his fingers the length of her slit before burrowing them deep inside her, curling them and beckoning.

"Oh, god, Harry," Hermione moaned breathlessly, breaking their fervid snog as her head dropped back, clunking a little against the wall of the shower as ecstasy suffused her.

Harry laughed wickedly, taking advantage of her surrender and kissing her neck like he couldn't get enough of her.

Reaching for him needily, Hermione traced her fingers across his taut abs, moaning again as he pumped his fingers inside of her, making her crazy. She wrapped her hand around his cock hungrily and Harry nipped the side of her neck as she worked her hand up and down the solid steel length of him. He rocked his hips a little, thrusting against her hand, and Hermione knew he wanted it as badly as she did.

Pulling him closer with her grip on his dick, she fished his hand reluctantly from her pussy, tilting her hips and guiding his cock to her entrance. Harry latched onto the side of her neck, suckling hard as he put his hands on her hips, canting them before nudging eagerly at her pussy with the blunt head of his cock. Hermione guided him inside of her, colours flashing like lightning before her eyes as he drove into her high and hard.

He was rough. Hermione kind of liked that, groaning and raking her nails down his back hard enough to leave welts when he snapped his hips repeatedly, slamming into her as hard as he could. His face was screwed up in concentration, his hands gripping her tightly enough to leave wicked bruises, and Hermione rocked her hips, her whole body trembling with the sensations coursing through her.

"Gods!" Hermione gasped desperately when he pushed her over the edge with a particularly brutal thrust.

Harry groaned when she clamped down on him tightly, her pussy milking him, squeezing, throbbing, pulsing as the orgasm slammed into her hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs and make her weak in the knees.

"Fuck, you're tight, Hermione," Harry muttered against her neck, slamming into her even harder, his pace growing erratic before he followed her over the edge and into the abyss with a soft groan.

Hermione sighed contentedly, leaning against him as she tried to catch her breath, her leg slowly slipping from his hip as he leaned into her, his weight the only thing preventing her from sliding to the floor in a contented puddle of witch.

"Gods, I needed that," Hermione murmured unabashedly, trailing her fingers over Harry's back.

"Me too," he panted. "Merlin, why did we hold out on this for so long, again?"

"We're fools, obviously," Hermione replied.

Harry laughed, leaning back to peer into her face. He smiled widely at her before stealing a soft kiss from her lips and Hermione smiled in return.

"You look worn out," he said, sounding smug.

"You can put me to bed, if you like," she sighed, nodding.

"Let's get clean first, yeah?" Harry said, picking up her loofa and the soap before lathering her up expertly.

Hermione let him before returning the favour, smiling and finding it entirely too sweet and too lovely to be so comfortable.

"You're beautiful, you know?" he told her when they'd finished showering, the two of them towelling off. He'd put his glasses back on and he was tracing his eyes over her fondly.

"You're pretty handsome yourself," Hermione replied, smiling even as she blushed at the praise.

Harry chuckled like he didn't believe her.

"Let's get to bed, yeah?" he suggested. "I expect dawn will be a long way off with midnight wake-ups and nightmares, and a craving for glasses of water and maybe sneaking into bed alongside us."

Hermione smiled.

"You think so? They've spent so long with only each other that they might just self-sooth, or soothe each other," she said, frowning a little. "And my gods, what a horrible sentence. We need to do something about the Ministry, Harry. No more orphans can be put through the type of neglect those boys suffered."

"I'll speak with Kingsley about it tomorrow. And maybe with Nott. Have him draw up an investment plan. Maybe buy a building somewhere to better ensure anymore orphans within the wizarding world are properly cared for. The last thing we need is another Tom."

"You could look into opening the facility as somewhere for people to drop off unwanted children, too," Hermione said. "I know there have a number of instances in recent years where half-bloods are being born to muggles thanks to the Death Eater revels and being shunned for having magic and being conceived of rape; and there's a lot of instances where muggleborns are being born to parents who shun them. They need help too. I want to help them, and if I'm about to be quitting the DRCMC to raise the boys, it couldn't hurt to still keep myself busy with something."

Harry grinned.

"You can come with me to help find somewhere, yeah? Somewhere with a lot of land, like a pre-Hogwarts home for orphans. Maybe even a wizarding elementary school. You and I know better than most what it's like to get to Hogwarts at age eleven and know diddly-squat about the magical world."

"Oh, Harry, that's a wonderful idea!" Hermione smiled widely. "I'd been wondering what I was going to do about sending the boys to pre-school, and sending Lucian to elementary school. With his condition, he'd miss the full moon days, and the muggles will ask questions when he growls and flashes his eyes at them."

"The other kids in the wizarding world might too, Hermione," Harry warned her. "I think the only werewolf who ever actually attended school was Remus. At least whilst afflicted. Most aren't bitten until their adults, or if they are, they don't go to Hogwarts."

"I'll have to find out from Greyback what he does with all the children he infects, and how he raises them without educating them…" Hermione bit her lip, frowning.

Harry nodded. "He didn't give you too much trouble, did he?"

Hermione shook her head. "Not as much as I'd thought. I think he was just grateful to know someone would be rescuing his sons from the clutches of the Ministry."

"And the others?" Harry asked.

Hermione shrugged. "Rowle was downright welcoming, if I'm honest. He insisted that I use the money in his vaults to raise the boys and to make sure we were all comfortable. As teasing and cheeky as ever, of course."

"I don't think I ever met him before that day in the café," Harry said.

"No, you wouldn't have," she shook her head. "He and I had something of a battle of wills taking place during first year. He's was several years ahead of us, and I made an enemy of him early on. But he was nice to me today, all things considered."

"And Dolohov?"

Hermione sighed. "Surly. Rude. Angry. Told me he'd rather die than have a mudblood raising his son. I had to steal the snog from him so that I could raise Dmitri."

"Funny kid, that one," Harry said as they both climbed into bed, not even needing to awkwardly shuffle to figure out who slept on which side. "You might want to keep an eye on him. He's bright. Too bright, I reckon. Like you. And sly, like his father."

"I expect they'll all need close attention," Hermione said softly. "It won't be easy on them to integrate into wizarding society when their fathers are Death Eaters, Harry. Imagine Teddy Lupin meeting Dmitri Dolohov. Dmitri's Dad killed Teddy's. If they ever figure that out, they might become enemies."

Harry sighed. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that," he admitted. "I don't want to let them develop a hatred for one another, Hermione. I just… I can't help thinking about how much Snape hated me just because he hated my Dad, you know? And I know that it's not the same, but Merlin, he was an arsehole to me most of the time. I don't want their father's mistakes to haunt them."

"Neither do I," Hermione said. "But how do we stop it. When the tabloids get a hold of this, they'll have a field day."

"We just need to work to change the perspective," Harry said. "Let the world see that these kids are just little boys and that they're in no way responsible for the mistakes their fathers made."

"I can't just let people like Rita Skeeter slay them in the papers, or allow them full access into the lives of these boys. They're so young and so precious, Harry. They need to be protected."

"They do," Harry said. "They're too young right now, yeah, except maybe Lucian, but there will come a time when they'll be old enough to understand what's going on, and it won't be like with me, you know. You can't shelter them from the truth until their adults, no matter how much you might want to, love. They need to know their fathers are criminals, and they need to know people will be prejudiced to them as a result. They need to be prepared for that, you just can't let it make them bitter."

"How do I not?" Hermione despaired.

"By making sure they grow up to be respectable young men who use their manners and behave themselves and mind their mother. By ensuring they know right from wrong, and making sure they do the right thing, no matter how tempting the wrong thing might be, at times. We just have to teach them to be upstanding young men as they grow."

Hermione sighed, closing her eyes and letting Harry spoon himself around her, looping his arm over her waist and pressing a kiss to the middle of her back.

"I guess so," she sighed.

 **~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

In the middle of the night, small bodies clambered over her, attempting to arrange themselves around her without waking her and Hermione opened her eyes.

"My spot," Alrik Rowle muttered to Dmitri Dolohov before burrowing into Hermione's arms.

"What about me?" Dmitri protested, and Hermione had to press her lips to keep from laughing when the other small boy burrowed into her arms as well, lying half on top of Alrik.

Harry snorted very softly in her ear, obviously awake too, and he carefully lifted his arm to loop it around both boys in addition to being around her. Hermione's eyes scanned the darkness, wondering if Lucian was going to join them as well, and she flinched just a little in surprise when she spied his eyes glowing from further down the bed where he'd curled up beside her legs, his arms hugging her lower half and his chin propped on her hip. Hermione reached for him carefully, smoothing her fingers through his hair and smiling gently to let him know it was alright that they'd all come in.

His lips twitched at the corners in response and he leaned into her hand just a bit.

"You'll be cold there, love," she whispered to the little boy, rolling slowly to her back and nudging Harry over a bit.

Harry, realising the problem and seeming to think that Lucian wasn't going to crawl in beside her if he was there, leaned over her, scooping both Alrik and Dmitri up, sliding them across Hermione and slotting the pair of toddlers in between the two of them.

Alrik giggled, burrowing into Hermione's side once more while Harry laid on his side, his hand resting on Hermione's middle as she laid on her back, the two little boys between them.

"Come here and hop under the covers, Lucian," Hermioe invited, peeling the covers back in the spot Alirk and Dmitri had vacated.

He hesitated for a minute before crawling up the bed and slipping under the blankets next to her. He shuffled over slowly until he was pressed against her side, facing outward, his fingers reaching to trace the bite Fenrir had given her as he laid there in the dark.

"Where's Ranulf?" Hermione whispered to Lucian, pressing an affectionate kiss to the top of his head.

"Sleeping in his cot," Lucian said. "I was going to bring him, but he grizzled when I tried to pick him up."

Hermione smiled.

"He might appreciate having some room to grow," she smiled. "He'll be fine, love. If he wakes, we'll see what's wrong with him, won't we?"

Lucian nodded, yawning widely.

"Mummy?" Alrik said, patting her side from the other side.

"Yes, Alrik?" Hermione asked, turning her head to look at the small boy and finding that he'd crawled up so that his nose touched hers when she looked in that direction.

"Sleep here now?" he asked.

Hermione smiled.

"For tonight, yes," Hermione said. "Get some sleep, darling."

"I not tired," Alrik protested.

"Night-time is sleep time, darling," Hermione told him. "Close your eyes and cuddle down there. You'll sleep, I promise."

"You sing?" Alrik asked, and Hermione smiled just a little.

"If you close your eyes and lie still, I'll sing you a song," she promised.

Alrik did as he was told, shuffling around until he could lay his head on her shoulder, his little arm thrown over her chest and his legs throw out towards Harry while Dmitri cuddled up right next to him, claiming one of her breasts for his pillow.

Hermione almost laughed, looking over at Harry across the pillows and finding her best friend grinning widely, though his eyes were closed.

"Can you sing _Scarborough Fair_ , love?" Harry whispered.

Hermione smiled, recalling that on nights when they'd been on the run in that terrible tent and the Locket horcrux had been eating at his psyche and making his sleep fitful, she'd often curled up next to him, smoothing her hands through his hair and humming the tune of the lullaby her mother had hummed to her when she'd been a girl.

Opening her mouth, Hermione licked her lips before very softly beginning to sing.

 _"Are you going to Scarborough Fair?_

 _Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme._

 _Remember me to one who lives there._

 _He once was a true love of mine."_

Her boys were asleep again long before she finished the song.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: *skids into the room sideways***

 ***flings 10k words of a chapter at you***

 ***squeaks and dives behind the couch***

 **xx-Kitten.**

* * *

 **Devils' Angels**

 _By Kittenshift17_

* * *

 **Chapter Nine**

* * *

Three days into her custody of the boys, the story hit the _Daily Prophet_ and Hermione cringed over her morning cup of coffee as she perused the front page of the paper. She'd been expecting it. Of course, she had. She'd known from the minute she'd taken custody of the boys that the story of a war heroine adopting the 'orphans' of monsters would create a stir. She'd been bracing for impact since the minute she'd laid eyes on her boys in that horrible Ministry facility, if she was being completely honest with herself.

Sipping a little more of her coffee and knowing she might need the caffeine in her system to keep herself from committing murder when she saw the name of the article's author, Hermione braced herself psychologically before beginning to read.

 ** _WAR HEROINE FOSTERS ORPHANS OF DEATH EATERS! SURVIVOR'S GUILT, OR DOES THE BATTLE WAGE ON BEHIND CLOSED DOORS?_**

 **By Romilda Vane**

 ** _Well-known justice warrior and muggleborn witch, Hermione Granger, has recently fostered four children belonging to incarcerated Death Eaters! The children, having fallen into Ministry custody when no sane, free, and physically capable living relative was available to care for them, are said to be the sons of none other than notoriously terrifying werewolf, Fenrir Greyback; the most reviled and previously escaped Azkaban inmate and Death Eater, Antonin Dolohov; and former Ballycastle Bats Quidditch superstar turned arsonist and Death Eater, Thorfinn Rowle._**

 ** _On Monday morning, Hermione Granger was spotted in the Magical Orphans and Child Protection Department of the Ministry for Magic, enquiring after the children currently in Ministry custody. At that time, this reporter has learned, there were four children in Ministry custody, and it's rumoured all four have been fostered by the young war heroine. But how does an unattached woman barely just entering her early twenties classify as a suitable legal guardian for four young boys under the age of ten?_**

 ** _This reporter certainly wanted to know._**

 ** _Granger, well-known throughout the wizarding world for her contributions alongside Harry Potter during the Second Wizarding War, is currently unattached following a flagrant break-up with fellow war-hero, Ronald Weasley several years ago. Despite what can only be called a healthy curiosity from the wizarding public, Granger has been very private about any of her relationships since that time and is not currently seeing anyone, sources say. How she imagines she'll find a wizard to marry after adopting four young sons of Death Eaters, this reporter certainly has no idea._**

 ** _The children are none other than those that The Daily Prophet has oft reported on, requesting someone step up and offer their home and their love for these unlovable sons of wretches. In this endeavour, Hermione Granger has not been alone. Within our world, a number of witches and wizards have stepped forward to adopt or foster children orphaned during the war, or as a result of their parents' incarceration in Azkaban. Carrie Shafiq, one of the MO &CP Department's very own employees has even fostered the daughter of a Death Eater and we are all quietly proud of these brave individuals for their sense of civic duty._**

 ** _However, while her actions and open-mindedness are admirable, one can't help but wonder just how it is than an unattached woman of such a young age and with such a complicated past with all three of the Azkaban inmates whose children she has adopted, has been able to do so. Surely this reporter isn't the only one who finds it a little suspicious that Miss Granger would seek to adopt the son of a man who tried so ardently to kill her that she was hospitalized for weeks at the end of her fifth year at Hogwarts? Antonin Dolohov, it is well known, has been locked up in Azkaban since the end of the First Wizarding War. What's more, he was amongst the number of Death Eaters who escaped Azkaban in 1996 and was considered to be at large until late 2000. His child, a boy of three, has been in Ministry custody following the untimely death of Dolohov's witch, Tatiana Rasmussen shortly after Dolohov's re-sentencing at the end of 2001._**

 ** _What would possess one such as Miss Granger, a victim of Dolohov's, to adopt his son? What's more, this reporter wonders what would prompt such a man – so violently in favour of blood prejudice, he is serving a life sentence for several counts of murder – to agree to a muggleborn witch raising his son? Is it, perhaps, a more sinister plot at play? It seems highly unlikely that such a bigoted man would wholeheartedly consent to a witch like Hermione Granger raising his son. I certainly wouldn't want one of my victims raising my child, were I ever to attack anyone as violently as Mr Dolohov attacked Miss Granger. Moreover, Miss Granger is closely associated with one, Molly Weasley, whose very own brothers, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, were slaughtered at Dolohov's hand during the First Wizarding War._**

 ** _Fellow Order of the Phoenix members, and friends of Granger, including Frederick Weasley, Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin also met their end as a result of Antonin Dolohov's wand-work. Mr Dolohov has, on numerous occasions, personally wronged Miss Granger and it need not be said that the witch has done terrible things to people who've done far less to her than Dolohov has. Begging the question of Granger's motives with this supposed act of selflessness and civic duty, and indeed, Dolohov's at agreeing to grant Hermione Granger custody of his young son._**

 ** _So, which is it? Blackmail? Desperation? Poor Ministry conditions regarding child welfare? Or something of a most unsettling nature? Does Miss Granger seek to exact revenge upon Dolohov through his son?_**

 ** _This reporter attended Hogwarts alongside Hermione Granger, and there are numerous instances that readily spring to mind that suggest Hermione Granger – for all her talk of equality, and fair rights for all beings, and her overall status as a warrior for justice – has been only too ready to indulge in revenge in the past. Everyone who attended Hogwarts with Granger can easily recall the cursed parchment that destroyed the complexion of one, Marietta Edgecombe, when she reneged on an oath of silence, unaware of the impending consequences. And while it ought not to be discussed in polite society, this reporter doubts she is alone in the recollection of Miss Granger handing over one Undersecretary to the Minister and Hogwarts High Inquisitor to the herd of centaurs calling the Forbidden Forest home following her tyranny up at the school._**

 ** _Miss Granger has an incredible capacity for cruelty, it would seem, and yet she has been entrusted to shape the minds and protect the lives of children belonging to men who have wronged her. Fenrir Greyback, the father of two of the children Granger has adopted, is considered the most notorious and most dangerous werewolf currently living. What's more, he was the werewolf who infected Miss Granger's teacher and fellow Order of the Phoenix member, Remus Lupin with lycanthropy in the first place. A detailed account of Mr Greyback's involvement in the Snatching of Granger, Potter, and Weasley during the height of the war, and their delivery of the trio to Malfoy Manor – where Granger was repeatedly subjected to the Cruciatus Curse – is also a matter of public record following the sentencing of Fenrir Grayback, Lucius Malfoy, Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange – in addition to the posthumous trial of Bellatrix Lestrange._**

 ** _Does it truly stand to reason that she would seek to raise two children belonging to such a monster after all he has done? Are Ministry standards for background checking so lax? Is Miss Granger's status as a war-heroine currying more favour than the rest of us are permitted? Sources say that Granger was not the only candidate who applied to adopt the boys, and yet she has been successful at gaining custody of all four._**

 ** _Perhaps the entire situation is simply born of the Survivor's Guilt that Granger is certainly not alone in feeling. Perhaps her intentions are pure, and she seeks only to provide a loving home for children who can't help who their fathers are. Perhaps she's attempting to gain sainthood, following the pattern of other admirable movements she's headed, including the Fair Rights for House Elves, and the abolishment of the Werewolf Registry, and even the Victims Protection charity she created that allows victims of the war to seek any medical or financial support they might need to get them back on their feet following the war. Perhaps her heart is simply in the right place and she's taking on a task no one else could be bothered with. Sources say that both of Greyback's children have been in Ministry custody for years, owing to their father's identity and the taint of lycanthropy running through their veins as a result. Perhaps Miss Granger is simply the one witch unafraid of their father and uncaring over a little lycanthropy in their DNA._**

 ** _Miss Granger was unavailable for comment, owing to an exclusivity bargain struck with retired Daily Prophet journalist, Rita Skeeter during the height of the war, but we are very much open to your interpretation on the matter._**

 ** _I'll let all of you decide._**

 ** _Is Hermione Granger a saint suffering survivor's guilt and bettering the world as a result? Or is she a wicked witch bent on destroying the lives of innocent children just because their fathers wronged her? Send your letters to the Public Affairs Correspondence of The Daily Prophet by owl to register your opinions._**

Hermione was vibrating with rage by the time she reached the end of the article. She had known it wouldn't be pretty the moment she'd spied Romilda's name at the top of it. The wretched little harpy had had it out for Hermione since their Hogwarts days, imagining Hermione to be monopolizing Harry's affections for herself despite Romilda's obvious interest in him. What was more, the staff of _The Daily Prophet_ had long been irked by her refusal to their requests for interviews over the years unless Rita was the one doing the reporting. As such, she'd expected that they would be less than flattering in their report on her latest endeavours.

But she'd never imagined they would stoop to this.

How _dare_ they suggest she would ever harm a child! Even the child of a Death Eater. The very next time Hermione saw the woman, she was going to ensure something terrible befell Romilda Vane.

As Hermione laid down the paper before she could rip it into a thousand pieces in her fury, she froze when she spotted Lucian standing on the other side of the room, watching her warily. He was alone, his eyes threaded with gold as he regarded her, and from the way his nostrils kept flaring, she could tell he could smell her anger.

"You're angry," he said quietly, watching her like he was curious, rather than afraid and Hermione wondered how often he had smelled the scent associated with anger to recognize it across her cottage.

"I am," Hermione agreed quietly, rather than greeting the boy.

She had learned over the past few days that even when prompted, Lucian didn't seem to like bothering with formal greetings. He tended to speak to her and Harry as though whatever time there was between past conversations evaporated the next time they spoke. Unfortunately, this related both to things that made him happy, and also to things that made him angry. He'd been holding a grudge against Harry for the past two days after Harry had gently reprimanded Ranulf for biting him during meal time on their second day together, in fact.

"At me?" he asked, frowning. "Is it because the moon is full tonight?"

Hermione blinked, having forgotten that it would be full, and that as a result, Lucian would undergo his partial transformation.

"I would never be angry at you for something you cannot help, Lucian," Hermione told him quietly, shoving aside the paper and getting to her feet.

She rounded the corner of the kitchen bench and opened her arms to the boy, intrigued to see if he would come to her.

"But you're angry," he said, taking a hesitant step closer before stopping and scenting the air again.

He frowned and Hermione wondered if he was confused by the lingering sense of her fury, now intermingled with the affection she felt for the young boy.

"Not at you, darling," Hermione said honestly, knowing he would be able to smell a lie. "Mummy's angry because there are some horrible people within our world who are trying to make a fuss over my having adopted you and your brothers."

Lucian raised one eyebrow in a way entirely too reminiscent of Fenrir and Hermione sighed.

"Come over here, Lucian," she said quietly, supposing she would have to explain to him what had happened and how things were going to work for their family in the future. "I think it's time we talked about a few things while your brothers are still sleeping and can't distract us."

Lucian's frown intensified.

"What things?" he said, taking one step closer but still not crossing the distance between them.

"Things about your Dad," Hermione said, A `1knowing it would lure him closer. "Would you like some breakfast while we talk?"

"What about Dad?" Lucian wanted to know, frowning at her.

Hermine patted the bar-stool at her breakfast bar as she began fixing some bacon and sausage, suspecting he would need a lot of energy for the night ahead.

"Do you understand why he's in Azkaban, Lucian?" Hermione asked the boy carefully as she waited for him to join her.

"He broke the law and got caught," Lucian replied, crossing the room and climbing up on the stool, never taking his eyes off her.

Hermione made a mental note to address his specificity at a later date, knowing it was likely a red-flag that he considered Fenrir's incarceration only the result of having been _caught_ breaking the law, rather than simply that he'd committed several crimes.

"He did. In many ways, your Dad did things that aren't considered good, or lawful, or polite in wizarding society. Some of them are very bad things, do you understand?"

Lucian nodded.

"The Pack liked to talk about it, sometimes," he confessed, and Hermione felt the strangest sense of dread settle in the pit of her stomach at the idea of Fenrir ever having had a Pack that Lucian had been exposed to.

"What did they say?" Hermione asked.

"That if he kept biting people, he would get caught. And that if he kept running witches down and mating with them, he would be in big trouble. That's how we got Pup. One of those witches he chased down got pregnant."

"You understand how mating and pregnancy are correlated?" Hermione frowned.

Lucian tipped his head to one side.

"You understand what I am, don't you?" he asked a question of his own.

"A child born of a mate-bond between two werewolves," Hermione nodded.

"Then why wouldn't I know about mating and babies?" he said.

"Well, you're only seven, darling," Hermione said, smiling gently. "Most children don't learn about this stuff until later in life."

"I lived with the Pack," Lucian shrugged his shoulders. "We're not like wizards. Dad says wizards shelter children from the facts of life. He says wizards are fools, not in tune with their own natures until they snap. And being seven in human years compared to seven in werewolf years seems to affect how smart people are."

"What do you mean?" Hermione frowned at him.

"I'm a werewolf," Lucian shrugged his shoulders. "I develop at a different rate to a human. My Mum used to rave about it before she died, after Dad bit her. And I can see the difference between Alrik and Ranulf."

Hermione frowned.

"You believe Ranulf is developing cognitively at a faster rate than Alrik, even though Alrik is older than him?"

Lucian nodded. "But, I've bitten both of them, which helps."

"You know you shouldn't bite them, don't you?" Hermione asked him.

Lucian nodded. "Dad would say I should, but I know you don't want me to bite them anymore. The elves used to scold me for biting them."

Hermione nodded slowly, frowning as she tried to gather her thoughts on all the boy was sharing and all she had witnessed in him over the past few days.

"Why are you angry?" Lucian asked. "Did Dad do something?"

Hermione sighed.

"How well can you read, Lucian?" Hermione asked, having found that interacting with him was best done by being direct, rather than dancing around topics. To him, things in life were simple. Primal. Instinctual. She would go so far as to say that Lucian Greyback saw the world only in shades of black and white. Good and bad. There seemed to be no half measures in his eyes. Either you were a friend, or a foe. Either a topic should be spoken of plainly, or not at all. He didn't seem to grasp nuances very well, only that there were things he should do and things he shouldn't.

Lucian shrugged defensively, obviously not wanting to admit to a certain level of reading skill lest it fall short of what a seven year old ought to be able to manage and thus, refusing to acknowledge any such shortcomings aloud.

"We get our news about the world around us via the newspaper," she told him, coming over and tapping the paper on the bench between them. "People read it to find out about what else is going on in the wizarding world. This morning, there is an article about me adopting the four of you."

"What's that got to do with talking abut Dad?" Lucian wanted to know.

Hermione sighed again, frowning a little and wishing desperately that there was a way she could make him understand everything about the war and the Death Eaters and her own role in it, without needing to explain it all in layman's terms such a young boy might understand. For all that Fenrir might be a monster, Hermione didn't want to colour his son's opinion of him based on the perspective of the war she had to offer.

"You understand that your Dad, along with Alrik and Dmitri's dads are all in prison, don't you, darling?" Hermione asked him quietly, biting the bullet and diving right into the first hurdle she would face raising these sons of devils.

Lucian nodded warily.

"Well, when they weren't in prison, they all did bad things to a lot of people," Hermione said carefully. "The three of them all did bad things to me before they were locked up."

Lucian began to frown.

"What's 'war heroine' mean?" he asked, pulling the newspaper closer. "What's 'survivor's guilt'?"

Hermione sighed.

"War Heroine means that when we were in a time of war, I did things that were considered very brave in the face of the danger that some people posed. Those people included each of your fathers. Despite their involvement with Voldemort, Harry and I worked against them and against Voldemort to stop him from doing horrible things," she explained gently. "People within the wizarding world are proud of me for it and many think well of me for it."

Lucian blinked, watching her, still waiting for more information.

"Survivor's guilt means the feeling people who survive something like that live with, knowing that despite their best efforts, other people were negatively impacted. You boys, for example, were left without parents because of the war. My own parents no longer know who I am, because to protect them I had to take away their memories. Some of my friends died during the fighting. You see? And I feel bad that those things have happened while I got off scott-free."

"This is why you adopted us?" Lucian said.

"Part of the reason," Hermione nodded truthfully, knowing he would smell it if she lied. "I adopted the four of you because you need parents and because if Harry and I had managed to stop Voldemort sooner, your Dads might never have done such horrid things to put them in prison."

"Dad's a lot older than you, Hermione," Lucian said seriously, surprising her when he called her by her first name, rather than 'Mummy' like the other three boys had taken to doing. She supposed that he recalled his mother more clearly than they must and wasn't yet comfortable referring to her in that manner. "He's been doing bad things for a lot longer than I've been alive. Probably longer than you've been alive. Some of the pack said he'd been doing bad things since he was born. You can't change a person's nature, Dad says."

Hermione marvelled at his maturity in that moment, surprised he was being so open with her. Over the past three days while he'd been in her care, he'd come to trust her, she knew, but she was surprised by his intelligence and his maturity, and especially his willingness to talk to her about it.

"That doesn't stop me from feeling bad about things beyond my control, Lucian," Hermione said quietly. "Guilt doesn't stop just because we shouldn't feel it."

Lucian nodded slowly.

"This says that people think you adopted us to hurt us and hurt our Dads," Lucian said, looking down at the paper he'd claimed. "It says they did bad things to you and to people you loved. What's the Order of the Phoenix?"

Hermione shook her head slowly, marvelling that he could read it all, if she was being completely honest.

"An organization of people who worked outside the law for the sake of stopping Lord Voldemort from overtaking the wizarding world. He was a very bad man who wanted anyone not of pure magical heritage to die. He used your Dad as something of an attack dog, and he had Dmitri's Dad and Alrik's Dad working for him, too. They did bad things in his name, which is why they're in prison, too."

"Says Dmitri's Dad almost killed you," Lucian frowned.

Hermione nodded.

"When I was sixteen, he cursed me during a duel. The spell was very powerful and would've burned my insides to a crisp had I not managed to use a Silencing spell on him so he couldn't say the words of the spell out loud. I still have this scar," she explained, lifting her shirt and showing him the starburst of purple scarring on her sternum.

Lucian blinked before reaching over the counter, surprising her when he dragged one long fingernail over the scar just hard enough to smart.

"It's got magic in it," he noted quietly, sniffing loudly like an inquisitive canine. "Magic that smells like Dmitri."

Hermione frowned at the scar.

"That… isn't what I expected," Hermione admitted, unsure what to make of the pronouncement.

Lucian leaned back, still sniffing her but withdrawing his hand.

"Says in the paper that Dad took you somewhere and that you got tortured," Lucian said, his eyes lowering to the newspaper once more as though he hadn't just shocked her.

"Yes," Hermione admitted. "I mentioned that we originally met in the woods one day."

"When he licked you," Lucian said, apparently recalling the conversation.

"Yes," Hermione nodded.

"Did you adopt us with the intention of hurting us?" Lucian asked bluntly, raising his eyebrows.

"Of course, I didn't," Hermione said. "Which is why I'm so angry about this article. I would never seek to harm an innocent child for any reason, let alone something so silly or petty as past grievances."

"Even against men like Dmitri's Dad, who almost killed you and marked you with his magic?" Lucian asked. "Even against my Dad? Who bit you three days ago and who handed you over to be tortured?"

"You know what the Cruciatus curse does?" Hermione frowned at the boy.

"Yes," Lucian said. "Dad used to say that it was the worst of the spells wizards with their death-sticks could inflict on us. That it was worse even than the transformation."

"He didn't keep much of the grit of the world from you, did he?" Hermione sighed, shaking her head sadly as she brought the boy his breakfast.

"Being sheltered from something only means you're not ready to fight it when it comes for you, he reckons," Lucian told her.

"I'm having words with him when next I visit him," Hermione decided, crossing her arms over her chest.

Lucian smirked.

"He won't change his mind," he told her. "What are you going to do about the article?"

"Do you think it's true?" Hermione asked the boy seriously.

Lucian eyed her for a long time whilst wolfing down his breakfast, his hands and face sticky with bacon grease and brown sauce.

"No," he said finally. "You're not doing this to get back at them. You have to kiss them to keep us, and no one with a grudge against men like them would willingly kiss them for the sake of a vendetta. You're helping us out of guilt, I think, but you're not interested in using our adoption as a means to lash out at our Dads."

"What makes you so sure?" Hermione asked the boy when she noticed the strength of his conviction.

Lucian pushed aside his plate and wiped his hands on his shirt, much to Hermione's dismay, before reaching across the counter for her arm. He cradled it in both of his hands, examining the scar where he'd bitten her and the slowly healing wound that ringed it where Fenrir had bitten her.

"Do you understand what this is?" he asked her, tracing the scabbed over ring of Fenrir's teeth marks upon her skin.

"Not really," Hermione confessed to the boy, unnerved by his forwardness for the morning before recalling the impending full moon and supposing it must be affecting him.

"Dad didn't just nip you for the sake of being angry or fearful or defensive, like I did," Lucian told her. "He marked you as a member of the Pack. He knew I wouldn't trust you to look after us if he didn't, and he knew that the Pack might come for me and challenge you for me without it."

"The Pack are still free?" Hermione asked. "Why were you in Ministry custody if one of them could've minded you, Lucian?"

Lucian scowled.

"I got caught with Dad when he was arrested," he said, growling softly. "And none of the Pack are considered capable of being my legal guardian because they're werewolves. The Ministry doesn't allow registered werewolves to obtain custody of minors, you know?"

Hermione scowled, recalling that though she'd worked to abolish the requirement of a registry, the Ministry still maintained a copy of the register up to the time of her abolishment. They weren't supposed to be able to use it to discriminate against werewolves, anymore, but she knew they still must.

"My only blood-relatives by Ministry standard within the Pack aren't of legal age to maintain custody," Lucian went on. "Even though they're not on the Registry."

"You have blood relatives aside from Fenrir and Ranulf?" Hermione asked, alarmed.

Lucian nodded, tracing Fenrir's bite on her skin again.

"I have a sister," he told her. "She'll be twelve this year. She lives with her Mum in the pack. Aunt Janey was bitten and mated by Dad before he met my Mum and they found out they were wolf-mates. And I have an older brother, who is almost sixteen. His Mum's dead, but he was still running with the pack the day me and Dad got caught."

"What are your siblings names?" Hermione asked him curiously, frowning at the idea that he might grow up alongside Alrik and Dmitri, rather than his half-brother and half-sister.

"Fillan and Rieka," Lucian told her, smiling toothily. "They'll hear me howl, tonight. Then they'll come and you'll be able to meet them."

Hermione frowned.

"And then what will happen? Your brothers won't be safe here, Lucian. Not if a pack of werewolves come to call. Dmitri, Alrik and Ranulf aren't werewolves, and I would like for them to remain that way until they are grown up and can decide for themselves if they would like to be."

Lucian nodded.

"The Pack won't stray too close when they're wolf. They don't know I'm here, yet. They don't know about Ranulf, yet. When they come, it will be after the moon. They might be hostile until they see Dad's bite on you."

Hermione's heart turned over inside her chest at the thought of the young boy disappearing from her life so soon after he'd come into it. He might be prickly and unsure and sometimes even unfriendly, but she was already growing to love him. She was growing to love all four of them and she couldn't bear the thought of losing any of them, especially not to an unknown pack of werewolves, even if they were Lucian and Ranulf's family.

"And… then what?" Hermione asked the young boy. "I'll be in some trouble if you and Ranulf disappear with the pack, Lucian. And I'd like very much for you to stay with me."

Lucian cocked his head, regarding her curiously.

"I won't leave," he shook his head, seeming a bit baffled by the suggestion that he would.

"But… if the Pack are coming here, and you've siblings among them…?" she said, frowning at him.

"Dad bit _you_ , Hermione," Lucian told her quietly. "My Mum is dead and has been since I was five. Ranulf's Mum… I don't know what happened to her. None of the people at the Ministry would tell me why he'd been put in that place with me and why none of the Pack had come to collect him."

Hermione bit her lip.

"You said that sometimes the pack spoke about how he would be in trouble if he kept running down witches and mating with them," Hermione said, supposing the topic wasn't appropriate for so young a boy but knowing no other way to explain to him how Ranulf had come to be motherless. "Do you understand that there were times when he did that, and the witches didn't want to mate with him?"

Lucian tipped his head, looking rather curious but somewhat confused.

"If they were in heat…" he began, shrugging his slim shoulders.

"In heat?" Hermione frowned. "Lucian… even if a woman is ovulating, she must _always_ give consent before any man should mate with her."

"What's consent mean?" Lucian frowned.

"Permission. She must agree to the act. Mating is a very serious thing among humans, and it is important for all parties involved in the act to enter into doing so willingly. They must be asked if they want to mate, and they must say that, yes, they do, if they would like to do so. And even if they say that they do to begin with, but later change their minds, that right must be respected."

"Like if I say Alrik can play with my toy, but then say I want it back?" he confirmed.

"A little. It's a bit more complicated than playing with toys, sweetheart, but the essential gist is the same. One of the reasons your father is in prison is because he often didn't bother to ask the women he mated with if they wanted to mate with him. He didn't ask Ranulf's mother if she wanted to mate with him before he did so."

"But now we have Pup," Lucian pointed out, like that made it all okay.

"We do have," Hermione nodded. "But his mother chose not to raise him, didn't she? She was still so angry with Fenrir for what he had done that she refused to raise the baby he sired. Do you understand?"

"She's not dead?" Lucian confirmed.

"Not to my knowledge," Hermione shook her head. "She wasn't dead when Ranulf was placed in Ministry custody alongside you. She gave birth to him and refused any further responsibility for him."

"But she's his Mum," Lucian frowned. "She can't just… walk away."

"She can, darling. She can, and she did. That is why he is with us here, and not with her, or with the Pack. She left him at the hospital without even giving him a name. She was so angry with your Dad for making her pregnant – for attacking her and forcing her to mate with him – that she left him there without even naming him. Do you understand?"

"But he's her Pup!" Lucian said, growling. His face visibly darkened with anger and Hermione watched his nails lengthen and darken into lethal looking claws. "She can't just leave him! She's his mother!"

Hermione sighed, shaking her head slowly.

"I'm his mother now, sweetheart," Hermione told him gently. "I know it's upsetting to you. I know it will be upsetting to him when he is old enough to understand why she left him. But he's got us, doesn't he?"

"If she was Pack, she never would've left him," Lucian said, his voice gravelly with the wolf that lived inside of him.

"She still might've, darling. That's why it's so important for a woman to consent to mating. It can and often does result in pregnancy, and if she didn't want to mate, she didn't want the baby. She has the right to give him up."

"But she's his blood!" Lucian said, and Hermione could see that for all that Fenrir had taught him some incredibly twisted things, apparently, he'd at least instilled a strong sense of family loyalty in the boy.

"Yes, but she didn't want to be, sweetheart," Hermione explained. "No matter the apparent heartlessness of the act, she did not want to be his mother, she did not willing enter into the act that resulted in her being his mother, and as such she is under no moral or legal obligation to fulfil the role of being his caregiver."

"Why?" Lucian demanded. "Why do wizards have laws that mean mothers can abandon their young? No werewolf would abandon her young!"

Hermione eyed him curiously, noting the way his fangs began to length in his mouth as he spoke, his temper rising.

"I'm sure they would, sweetheart. In the wild, full blooded wolves eat their own young if there's not enough food available to raise them," she tried to explain. "Some people simply are not cut out for parenthood, darling. I'm sorry that it seems unfair, but that's the way it is."

Lucian growled at her angrily as though it was her fault before he looked away.

"Unfair," he bit out angrily. "It's not unfair. It's unnatural. A witch who carried a baby inside her belly for months and months can squeeze him out and walk away without another word or thought for him. And then witches like you, who've never carried babies in your belly, can come along and be our mother instead. How? How does it work? You didn't carry Ranulf. You didn't carry Alrik or Dmitri or me. Why do you want to help us?"

"Because I have the means and the inclination to do so," Hermione offered helplessly, reaching for him in the hopes of carding her fingers through his hair, having learned that the action tended to soothe him. "I _want_ to raise the four of you. I want to make sure you're happy and healthy and well-fed and loved and that you grow up to be wonderful men. I want to make sure that even though all of your Father's made mistakes, you do no have to pay for them."

"But you hate them," Lucian accused, his fangs flashing at her and his eyes brightening with the gold of the wolf. "You hate our Dads, don't you? How could you not? Ranulf's Mum abandoned him because Dad mated her. Our Dad's did much worse things to you than mating and yet you want to help us."

"Oh, Lucian," Hermione sighed, shaking her head. "No, they didn't, darling."

Lucian frowned.

"Dolohov hexed you and almost killed you," he argued. "Dad took you hostage and handed you over to people who tortured you with spells more painful than the transformation. That's worse than a bit of mating. Everyone in the pack says mating feels good. You mate with Harry, don't you?"

Hermione winced.

"Mating by choice is vastly different from rape, Lucian. That's what it's called. When one of the people involved in the act of mating doesn't want to do it, the other person involved is violating their wishes. That violation is one of the most unforgivable things in the world. Do you understand? Antonin tried to kill me, yes. And it hurt. And I hated him for it. Part of me still hates him for it and might always hate him for it, but I would hate him more – I would do unspeakable things to hurt him and to kill him – if he had raped me, darling."

Lucian looked like he didn't understand. Like he couldn't understand the importance of consent, or the difference between sex and rape. He looked like he couldn't fathom how being hurt so violently could compare to something that she was beginning to suspect he'd only witnessed or heard about in favourable lights.

"You need to understand, darling. Mating when someone doesn't want to hurts," she told him. "It hurts more than the transformation. It hurts more than hexes like the one Dolohov used. It hurts more than the Cruciatus curse."

"How?" Lucian said. "How can it sometimes feel good and other times hurt that much?"

Hermione wracked her brain, trying to think of a way to explain it to him without exposing him to the wretched truth of such heinous things and without forever altering his perception of his father.

"Well," Hermione said. "It hurts inside, rather than outside. Do you understand? It can sometimes leave scars, create tears and draw blood, but the pain it inflicts is often more psychological than physical. To be forced to do something you don't want to do, and to be powerless to prevent it from happening, that causes terrible pain inside a person, Lucian."

"You forced me to eat my vegies last night, but I'm fine," he argued.

"Vegies are a bit different than mating, sweetheart," Hermione said patiently. "And had you really put up enough of a fight, you would have been able to refuse to eat them. You see? When someone is raped, no matter how much they might fight, they can't stop it from happening. That makes them angry and it makes them feel powerless."

"But wouldn't being hexed like that make you powerless, too?" he asked, jabbing a claw toward her sternum.

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "It did. I was angry and scared for a long time after I was hexed."

"Then why would you want to ever see Dmitri's Dad ever again?" Lucian asked.

Hermione sighed, shaking her head.

"To be completely honest, I don't want to see him ever again. But no one else wants to see him ever again either, except Dmitri. And because they don't want to see him, they don't want to look after Dmitri."

"And he needs looking after," Lucian finished for her quietly, some of the anger tightening his small body beginning to lessen.

"Yes, he does," Hermione nodded. "You all do."

"But why you?" Lucian frowned.

"That's what the people who wrote this mean story about me want to know," Hermione shrugged her shoulders, tapping the paper once more and reminding him of the reason she'd been angry.

"Will you tell me why?" Lucian said. "Or is it just because no one else wants to talk to our Dad's and you're brave? Because you feel guilty that we're alone?"

Hermione smiled.

"Not many people are brave enough to speak to your Dad, darling. Especially not many people who aren't werewolves."

Lucian nodded.

"He can be mean," Lucian said. "He's scary when he growls and wants to bite people."

"He is," she agreed. "Dmitri's Dad is scary, too. He says nasty things and he uses nasty spells that make people hurt."

Lucian nodded.

"What about Alrik's Dad?" Lucian asked. "The paper didn't mention much about him."

Hermione looked down at it for a moment, frowning. No, she supposed it hadn't mentioned anything about Thorfinn.

"Thorfinn is younger than your Dad ad Dmitri's Dad," Hermione told him. "He hasn't had as long to try to hurt me."

"But he's still locked up," Lucian pointed out.

"He is. He has a very bad habit of setting things on fire when he loses his temper."

"That's bad," Lucian said. "I don't like fire."

"No, lots of people don't like fire. Especially when it's consuming their houses."

Lucian shuddered.

"Do you hate having to see him?" Lucian asked. "Do you hate seeing my Dad?"

Hermione bit her lip, knowing she couldn't lie to him; knowing he would smell and lie, but knowing the answer was important to him.

"I don't hate seeing Thorfinn," she told him. "I'd rather I didn't have to, because he was very mean to me when I was Rieka's age and tried to hurt me very badly. If I did not have to see him, I would not do so."

Lucian nodded slowly.

"And my Dad?" he asked.

"Your Dad… truthfully, he wasn't as bad when I visited him the other day as he had been the last time we met," Hermione said quietly, frowning and looking down at the newspaper for a long moment. "He said he couldn't smell any fear of me when I was there, which surprised me."

"He can be scary," Lucian allowed. "But he's scariest to people who are afraid of the wolf. You're not afraid of wolves, I don't think."

"What makes you say so?" she asked him, lifting her eyes back to the young boy, her heart aching over the frank discussion they'd had and over the strange relationship she was developing with him.

He held out his hands, revealing the lethal claws at the ends of his fingers, and then he pointed to his teeth – his mouth full of sharp canine fangs.

"I look like this and you haven't once flinched away. I can't smell fear on you," he said, sniffing again.

Hermione nodded slowly, frowning and recalling what Fenrir had said about her conception and how she ought to begin looking into why she wasn't afraid of the wolf and why his bite didn't itch and burn like hell-fire.

"Well, I'm a bit bigger than you, darling," she said quietly.

Lucian smirked.

"Yeah, but I'm stronger," he told her quietly. "If I wanted to, I could rip your throat out with my fangs. You wouldn't be able to fight me off. Especially not on a moon day."

Hermione blinked at the quiet certainty in his voice and on his face.

"You're still just a boy, Lucian," she reminded him. "I'm an adult."

"Maybe, but I'm a werewolf and you're a human. Or…" he leaned closer before climbing down out of his chair and moving around the bench to close the distance between them. "Mostly human, might be a better word."

"Because I've been bitten by you and Fenrir?" Hermione asked, unsure what to make of it when the boy curled his small arms around her waist and he buried his face against her stomach, breathing in deeply.

"No," he said, his voice muffled as he continued hugging her and sniffing her intensely. "You smell like the Pup."

"I was up in the middle of the night feeding him," she offered, frowning at the change of topic.

"No," Lucian shook his head. "I don't mean his scent is on your clothes and your skin. I mean your blood smells like his does."

"In what way?" Hermione asked, alarmed. "I'm certain we're of no actual blood relation."

"No, but you smell like him. Like a human with a werewolf for a Dad."

"Both of my parents were muggles," Hermione said, repeating the words she'd said to Fenrir.

"Were they?" Lucian asked, frowning. "You're sure?"

Hermione sighed, looking down at the young boy and carefully curling her arms around him.

"I thought I was," she admitted. "Until you and your Dad started saying that it might not be the case."

"Dad said so too?" Lucian asked, looking proud of himself for coming to the same conclusion as his father.

"Yes," Hermione said, cuddling the boy while he was allowing the affection. "He suggested a way for me to stop the itch of his bite. When I told him it wasn't itchy, he suggested I begin looking into my parents' friends, neighbours and colleagues at the time of my conception, implying that my mother had an affair…"

Lucian looked like he didn't know what an affair was.

"He suggested that my Mum mated with someone other than the man I've been led to believe is my Dad," she explained.

"Why's it called an affair?" Lucian wanted to know.

"Because when two people are in a relationship, they make commitments to one another that mean they're not supposed to mate with other people. If they're married, it's referred to as adultery because they promise to only mate with each other, and then break that promise."

"You're not supposed to break promises," Lucian said.

"No, sweetheart, you're not," Hermione said, smiling gently at him. "Are you still angry? You can put away your fangs and your claws now, you know?"

Lucian winced a little.

"No, I can't," he admitted. "They won't go away until after the moon, now. They stay out once they come out on moon days. They'll get longer and more wolfy when the sun goes down."

"Do they hurt?" Hermione asked him worriedly.

"No," he shook his head. "Can we go outside?"

"I… of course we can, darling," Hermione frowned at the boy, releasing her hold on him and watching him make a beeline for the backdoor into her yard.

"It's nice out here," he said when they were outside in the sun.

He walked slowly over to the day-beds and the small table that looked out over the lake, stopping next to one until she joined him.

"Will you tell me about your transformations, Lucian?" Hermione asked the boy quietly when she followed him over and he gestured that he wanted her to sit down.

"What do you want to know?" he asked, turning at look at her with wolf eyes for a long moment.

"What can I expect this evening when the sun goes down? Do you know what happens to you at the full moon?" she asked gently.

Lucian's mouth twisted like he didn't want to tell her.

"Are you going to give me back to the Ministry if you don't like what happens to me?" he asked, scowling.

"Never," Hermione vowed solemnly. "Until the day I die, Lucian Greyback, you will be welcome in my home, no matter the effects of your transformations. I promise it."

Lucian eyed her seriously, as though taking measure of her seriousness before he nodded once.

"I don't always remember what happens," he confessed quietly, fidgeting a little. "It hurts when my fur grows in. I get really itchy. And my ears hurt a lot when they turn to wolf ears and move up to the top of my head. My hands and feet ache when my claws get longer, and my face hurts from the way I have to hold my jaw, so I don't cut my lips on my teeth when they get bigger."

"Do you get cranky?" Hermione asked him.

"Yes," he admitted. "I feel… not like me, anymore. But still a little bit like me. I feel like there is a wolf inside me and he takes control when the moon is full, but he lets me watch and sometimes he listens to what I want. Dad says that doesn't happen to him when his wolf takes control. He says when the rest of the pack go wolf, they can't make any decisions or sway their wolves to do what they want."

"Everything I've read and witnessed suggests that under the light of the full moon, the werewolf forgets who he is completely," Hermione nodded.

"Forgetting doesn't seem right," Lucian shook his head. "I don't forget who I am… I just… I'm not the one in charge, anymore."

"Do you ever feel the need to bite people when your wolf is in charge?" she asked, wondering if she would need to isolate him when the moon rose.

"Yes," Lucian whispered truthfully, his eyes gold as he watched her. "I want to bite things. I wanted to bite the Pup, and Alrik and Dmitri every full moon when we were in the Ministry. But they're so little, and they were scared of me when I had my fur and my fangs… I didn't like it when they were scared of me, so I made my wolf not bite them."

"Do you think you could make your wolf not bite me, too?" Hermione asked.

Lucian tipped his head first one way, then the other.

"I think so," he nodded.

"Do you think we should do something to make sure you won't bite me, in case your wolf doesn't agree?"

"Like what?" he asked, frowning.

"Do you think we should put you in another room where you can't bite me or your brothers? I have no desire to be a werewolf and endure the transformations, Lucian. I wouldn't be able to effectively mind your brothers on full moon nights if I was a wolf, too. And I wouldn't be able to stop my wolf from biting them, or even eating them."

Lucian nodded slowly.

"Maybe we better put me in a special room just in case. The people at the Ministry always put me in a different room where I could still see the Pup and the others, but couldn't hurt them."

"Did being able to see them help?" Hermione asked.

Lucian shook his head. "Seeing them makes it harder. When I can see them and smell them, my wolf can smell that they're human and it wants to bite them. I have to fight with my wolf to keep from trying to bite them when I can see them."

Hermione frowned, wondering where they could put him so he wouldn't run off into the forest and get lost, and so he wouldn't harm them.

"What do you think about using the greenhouse as your room for transforming so you won't want to bite us?" she asked, spying the greenhouse she'd had Ron and Harry help her build for growing potions plants where is was tucked against the back of her cottage.

Lucian looked at it for a minute before wandering toward it.

"I could get out easily," he told her when they reached it and he let himself inside.

He demonstrated how he would do so by running the sharp point of one claw over the shade-cloth fabric, splitting it in two.

"Not if I used spells to make it unbreakable," Hermione told him, repairing the hole with her wand and casting the charms before nodding at him to try ripping it again.

This time the fabric did not give under his claws, even when he slashed at it viciously.

"It's soft enough that if you fling yourself at it, it won't hurt you, but it will contain you.

"I could burrow out," he said, using the claws on the ends of his toes to dig a small hole in the dirt floor.

"I can charm that too," Hermione said, doing so.

He tested it again, and again found it impenetrable.

"What if I still find a way out?" he asked her.

"Did you try to find ways out at the Ministry?" she asked.

"No," he admitted. "I just curled up in one corner. They fed me, and I could think alright as long as I didn't get too hungry."

Hermione nodded her head slowly.

"Well, how about we make sure you have a lot to eat today, and that there's food in here with you when you come out before the sun goes down, and we'll give it a try? Will that be alright with you, darling?"

Lucian frowned, sniffing loudly for a few minutes without answering her before finally he tipped his head up to look at her. His face was calm and serious as he regarded her for a long time.

"The Pack won't like it," he told her.

"The pack aren't here," she reminded him. "And we're trying to make sure you won't feel like biting me or biting your brothers."

Lucian nodded slowly.

"I'll try it," he agreed. "And I'm sorry if I wreck your plants."

Hermione looked around.

"I might move some of them out before the sun goes down," Hermione told him. "There are a few in here that might fight back if you go flinging yourself at them or trying to bite them when the wolf takes over."

Lucian looked alarmed.

"Plants can fight back?" he asked.

"Of course, they can, darling," Hermione smiled. "At Hogwarts, there's even a Whomping Willow. A great big willow tree that flails it branches around and whomps it's boughs against things when they come too close. In fact, do you remember the man they spoke of in the paper? The one your Dad bit? Remus Lupin?"

Lucian nodded slowly.

"He was one of the only werewolves to ever attend Hogwarts," Hermione told him proudly. "Every full moon, to make sure he couldn't hurt anyone, he would be taken out to the Whomping Willow. Underneath it, there's a passage that leads to a safe-haven just like this one where he was able to transform without hurting anyone or biting anyone. And anyone who got too close to the entrance to that haven at the base of the tree would get whipped and run away, so they would stay safe and couldn't trick him into hurting or biting them."

Lucian looked intrigued.

"What's Hogwarts?" he asked, frowning at her. "They wrote about Hogwarts in the paper, too. The writer said she went to Hogwarts with you."

"Hogwarts is a school for magical folk," Hermione said, slowly, frowning. "Didn't your Dad ever tell you about Hogwarts?"

Lucian shook his head.

"Do they let werewolves in?" he asked. "Dad doesn't like people who don't like werewolves."

"They let Remus in," Hermione said. "I don't think they ever forbade werewolves from attending, though he did have to keep his lycanthropy a secret to keep people from realising what he was. Lots of people are scared of werewolves, you know?"

"Dad said that," Lucian nodded, trailing back out of the greenhouse almost absently. "He said wizards had no concept of what true power was, and that they were so afraid of the wolf, they couldn't see the benefits the wolf brings."

"Well, I'm afraid I can't find fault in him for that," Hermione sighed. "Many people are afraid of things they don't understand, and unfortunately, very few people make an effort to learn much about werewolves other than the basics."

"Could I go to Hogwarts, one day?" Lucian asked quietly when he trailed back to the day-beds and stood near the end of one, looking out over the lake.

"I don't see why not, darling? I'm on very good terms with the current Headmistress. I will owl her when you're a little closer to being old enough to attend, requesting that you be permitted to go to Hogwarts and to learn about the magical world, just as your brothers will."

"Will you have to request permission for them, too?" Lucian asked, and from the bitter edge to his voice, Hermione could tell he'd picked up on the implication that the others, being human, wouldn't need special permission.

"I might have to, Lucian," Hermione sighed sadly. "In your case it will be because you being a werewolf means there are special precautions the teachers will need to take to keep you and the other students safe."

"But not for them," Lucian said, baring his teeth though he wasn't looking at her. "They're not wolves like me. They're not savage abominations like me. They're not monsters like me."

"Who called you those names, Lucian?" Hermione asked, stilling as she listened to the way he rattled off the sneers with practiced ease. She could tell someone had called him those things many times over.

"It doesn't matter," he said, though he growled softly.

Hermione reached out and put her hands on his shoulders, turning him and squatting a little so she could look him directly in the eye.

"Who?" she asked firmly. "Who called you an abomination?"

Lucian looked away, obviously not wanting to tell her.

"Who said it, Lucian?" Hermione demanded.

For the longest time, he said nothing, and Hermione feared he wasn't going to answer her at all.

"The healers," he spat gruffly when she was just about to ask him again, not about to let the insults go. "They would come and prod me and poke me and I wanted to claw their stupid faces off! I hated them! They said I was hideous and a monster. A savage, ugly beast. Part boy and part wolf and not even one or the other at full moons."

His face twisted into a savage snarl that she imagined had frightened more than one healer over the years while he'd been in their custody and Hermione found a deep and abiding hatred building inside her for whichever wretches could say such things to an innocent boy. She could feel it welling up from some pit in her stomach and threatening to overflow in a burst of violent rage.

"You're none of those things, Lucian," Hermione said fiercely. "You're a boy and a wolf. You're a werewolf. And you might not be my blood, but you're my son. I swear to Merlin, I'm going to make them pay for saying those things to you, sweetheart. Don't you listen to them for even a second. You're a person, not a savage beast. And if I have to threaten her at wand point, Professor McGonagall will let you attend Hogwarts when the time comes, and by the Gods if anyone so much looks sideways at you or your brothers because of your surnames and who your fathers are, I swear I'll make them regret it."

Hermione huffed out a breath all in a rush when the boy before her threw himself against her, his arms closing around her waist and squeezing so tightly she feared he might crack her ribs. He buried his face against her stomach, and he clutched her to him desperately. His actions, more than the hatred on his face as he'd repeated their cruel words, spoke volumes to Hermione that made her want to wring the necks of anyone who'd ever dared hurt him.

Cuddling him in return, Hermione silently vowed that she would do everything in her power to make the people who made him feel like he was less than human pay for what they done.


End file.
